Class 




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PRESENTED BY A 

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THE PRIME MINISTERS OF BRITAIN 




Van Loo innx. 



J. Watson sc. 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE 

AFTERWARDS EARL OF ORFORD 



Frontispiece 



THE 

PRIME MINISTERS 
OF BRITAIN 

1721-1921 



BY THE 



HON. CLIVE BIGHAM 'Jrwy^M ^ ZMao^^ 



NEW YORK 
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

1922 



•PI 4 



Printed in Great Britain 
Gift- 
Kent Lau. Bo..k CO., 
Jan. 22. 1937 






PREFACE 



To tell in full the tale of the Prime Ministers would 
be writing the history of England for two centuries and 
engrossing a task portions alone of which have been 
deemed sufficient for many famous pens. 

The aim of these pages is more modest. It is merely 
to make short sketches of the lives of the thirty-six men 
who have held the helm of State since the present political 
system began; to give some account of their personal 
works and days rather than of their legislative acts ; 
and, by assembling their records within a moderate 
compass, to indicate the spirit of continuity and the 
tradition of service that have, with few exceptions, 
inspired their policy and directed their ends. 

January, 1922. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION : The Ofbtce op Pbimb Minister - - 1 

CHAPTBB 

I. THE WALPOLE ERA: Walpole and Wilmington - - 10 

II. THE PELHAMS : Pelham and Newcastle - - - 32 

III. THE DUKES : Devonshiee, Grafton and Portland - 50 

IV. THE PITTS : Chatham and Pitt - - - - 74 
V. THE GRENVILLES : George and Willloi Grenville - 98 

VI. THE KING'S MEN: Bute and North - - - 117 

VII. THE OLD WHIGS : Rockingham and Shelburne - - 138 

VIII. LESSER LIGHTS : Addington, Perceval and Goderich - 158 

IX. THE HIGH TORIES : Liverpool and Wellington - - 182 

X. TORY REFORMERS : Canning and Peel - - - 200 

XL WHIG REFORMERS : Grey and Russell - - - 221 

XII. THE LAST WHIGS : Melbourne and Palmerston - - 242 ' 

XIII. THE LAST TORIES : Aberdeen and Derby - - - 267 

XIV. THE CONSERVATIVES : Disraeli and Salisbury - - 284 

XV. THE LIBERALS : Gladstone and Campbell-Bannerman - 310 

XVL THE PRESENT DAY: Lord Rosebery, Mr. Balfour, 

Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George ... 329 

CONCLUSION : Analysis op Prime Ministers - - 345 

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF PRIME MINISTERS - 353 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 355 

INDEX - - 361 



Vll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

(ARBANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER) 

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, afterwards EARL OF ORFORD frotUispiece 
From the mezzotint by J. Watson, after Van Loo. Circa 1730. 

TO FACE PAGE 

SPENCER COMPTON, EARL OF WILMINGTON - - - 26 

From the mezzotint by J. Faber, after Sir G. Kneller. 1734. 

THE RT. HON. HENRY PELHAM 38 

From the mezzotint by R. Houston, after W. Hoare. 1762. 

THOMAS PELHAM HOLLES, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE - 48 

From the mezzotint by J. Faber, after Sir G. Kneller. Circa 1720. 

WILLIAM CAVENDISH, 4th DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE - - 54 

From the painting by Allen Ramsay at Chatsworth, by kind permission of 
the Duke of Devonshire. Circa 1757. 

JOHN STUART, 3rd EARL OF BUTE - - - - - 118 

From the painting by Sir J. Reynolds at Wortley, by kind permission of 
the Earl of Whamcliffe. Circa 1762. 

THE RT. HON. GEORGE GRENVILLE 102 

From the mezzotint by R. Houston, after W. Hoare. Circa 1758. 

CHARLES WATSON-WENTWORTH, 2nd MARQUESS OP 

ROCKINGHAM 144 

From the mezzotint by E. Fisher, after Sir J. Reynolds. 1775. 

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM - - - - - 86 

From the line engraving by R. Sherwin, after R. Brompton. 1772. 

AUGUSTUS HENRY FITZROY, 3rd DUKE OF GRAFTON - - 60 

From the mezzotint by C. Turner, after J. Hoppner. 1805. 

FREDERICK NORTH, LORD NORTH, afterwards 2nd EARL OF 

GUILFORD - -...--- 134 

From the mezzotint by T. Burke, after N. Dance. 1785. 

WILLIAM PETTY FITZMAURICE, 2nd EARL OF SHELBURNE, 

afterwards marquess OF LANSDOWNE - - - 150 

From the engraving by F. Bartolozzi, after T. Gainsborough. 1787. 

WILLIAM HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK, 3rd DUKE OF 

PORTLAND 70 

From the mezzotint by J. Murphy, after Sir J. Reynolds. 1785. 

THE RT. HON. WILLIAM PITT 96 

From the engraving by F. Bartolozzi, after W. Owen. Circa 1792. 

HENRY ADDINGTON. afterwards VISCOUNT SIDMOUTH - 166 

From the mezzotint by S. W. Resmolds, after T. Thompson. Circa 1802. 

WILLIAM WYNDHAM GRENVILLE, LORD GRENVILLE - - 112 

From the engraving by A. Fittler, after T. Phillips. Circa 1810. 

ix 



X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO FACE PAGE 

THE RT. HON. SPENCER PERCEVAL 172 

From the mezzotint by C. Turner, after G. H. Joseph. 1812. 

ROBERT BANKES JENKINSON, afterwards 2nd EARL OF LIVER- 
POOL ----...-- 182 
From the mezzotint by J. Young, after Sir T. Lawrence. 1801. 

THE RT. HON. GEORGE CANNING 208 

From the mezzotint by C- Turner, after Sir T. Lawrence. Circa 1825. 

FREDERICK JOHN ROBINSON, VISCOUNT GODERICH, afterwards 

EARL OF RIPON ... .... 178 

From the mezzotint by C. Turner, after Sir T. Lawrence. 1824. 

ARTHUR WELLESLEY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON - - - 198 

From the mezzotint by J. Scott, after J. Lilley. Circa 1830. 

CHARLES GREY, 2nd EARL GREY - - - - - 230 

From the engraving by S. Cousins, after Sir T. Lawrence. 1830. 

WILLIAM LAMB, 2nd VISCOUNT MELBOURNE - - - 246 

From the mezzotint by Mclnnes, after Sir T. Lawrence. Circa 1810. 

SIR ROBERT PEEL - - - - . - - 214 

From the engraving by and after J. Linnell. 1838. 

LORD JOHN RUSSELL, afterwards EARL RUSSELL - - 236 

From the painting by Sir F. Grant, by kind permission of Messrs. Long- 
mans. 1853. 

EDWARD GEOFFREY STANLEY, Uth EARL OF DERBY - - 278 

From the engraving by H. Cousins, after H. P. Briggs. 1842. 

GEORGE GORDON, 4th EARL OF ABERDEEN - - - 268 

From the mezzotint by C. Turner, after Sir T. Lawrence. 1809. 

HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, 3rd VISCOUNT PALMERSTON - - 262 

From a drawing by G. Richmond. 1852. 

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD - - - 294 

From an engraving after Sir W. Grant. 1852. 

THE RT. HON. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE - - - 310 

From the engraving by T. O. Barlow, after Sir J. E. Millais. 1881. 

ROBERT TALBOT GASCOYNE CECIL, 3ed MARQUESS OF 

SALISBURY - 304 

From the engraving by T. O. Barlow, after Sir J. E. Millais. 1887. 

ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, 5th EARL OF ROSEBERY . 330 

From a photogravure, by kind permission of the Earl of Eosebery. 

THE RT. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR - - - - 336 

From an engraving after Alma Tadema, by kind permission of Messrs. 
P. and D. Colnaghi. 1891. 

SIR HENRY CAMPBELL- BANNERMAN - - - - - 326 

From a photogravure after Colin Forbes, by kind permission of Messrs. W. 
Doig. 1907. 

THE RT. HON. HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH - - - 338 

From a photogravure after Solomon J. Solomon, by kind permission of 
Messrs. Raphael Tuck and Sons, the publishers. 1907. 

THE RT. HON. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE - - - - 342 

From an autotype after Christopher Williams, by kind permission of the 
Autotype Fine Art Co. 1911. 



THE 

PRIME MINISTERS OF BRITAIN 

INTRODUCTION 
THE OFFICE OF PKIME MINISTEE 

In England Prime Ministers are a comparatively modern 
institution. In the days of the Norman and Planta- 
genet monarchs the King himself directed and carried 
on the government of the country by the advice of his 
Council. This he did through his own officers and largely 
from his own revenues. Usually he chose these officers 
himself, though at times they were forced upon him. For 
the most part they were priests, the medieval ecclesiastics 
possessing considerable advantages over laymen in the way 
of education and of freedom from family ties. They often 
rose to great power and rivalled the King himself. Such 
were Flambard, Becket, Beaufort and Wolsey. Soldiers 
like de Montfort and Warwick were rarer and less per- 
manent, while courtiers of the Gaveston or Despencer type 
had the least success. Most of these ministers, except 
occasionally the prelates, belonged to the nobility. 

But after the Wars of the Roses nearly all the old 
families had disappeared. When Henry VII. came to the 
throne the lay peers only totalled twenty-nine, one-third of 
what their numbers had been a hundred and fifty years 
earlier. The influence of the Church was also diminishing, 
whilst two new classes, the landed gentry and the city 
merchants, were rapidly becoming literate and acquiring 
importance. The names of Howard, Seymour, Cecil, 
Cavendish and Russell now first rise into prominence, and 
the House of Commons is really beginning to count. After 
the commencement of Queen Elizabeth's reign there are 



2 THE OFFICE OP PRIME MINISTER 

only two instances of a bishop being Lord Chancellor or 
Lord Treasurer, while the Secretaries of State have ceased 
to be mere clerks. Nevertheless the Sovereign is still 
paramount, presiding himself at his Council and person- 
ally selecting his ministers. 

Under the Stuarts this choice became much more re- 
stricted and it was soon distinctly limited to members of 
either House of Parliament : Strafford and Clarendon had 
both been notable commoners. The business of State also 
began to be systematized, and a definite routine was 
followed. With the Restoration came further changes. 
Ministers were obliged to pay more attention as well as 
considerable gratifications to the members of the House 
of Commons, while even the King used to go down to the 
House of Lords and try to influence their debates. The 
Cabal established the committee idea. 

In 1688 another advance was made. The arbitrary 
power of the Crown was definitely checked. Parliament 
became almost supreme, and a certain responsibility was 
compelled from the administration. King William, who 
acted largely as his own minister, took an active and con- 
stant part in the government, but Queen Anne devolved 
more and more of her duties upon her councillors. Then 
came a fresh development. A foreign prince succeeded to 
the throne. Entirely dependent on the goodwill of a 
parliamentary majority, and speaking hardly any English, 
he could not efi'ectively control that committee of the 
Council which was gradually growing into a Cabinet. He 
was averse to political business and became attached to 
a single minister. This minister, who led the House of 
Commons, was also the leader of the Whigs and was sup- 
ported by the great families of the Revolution. Gradually 
he took the first place among his colleagues, communicating 
the roval commands to them, and their views to the 
Sovereign. From this to a more precise position was but a 
short step, and the regular series of Prime Ministers is re- 
garded as beginning with Sir Robert Walpole's appoint- 
ment to the office of First Lord of the Treasury in April, 
1721. Some authorities have considered Harley, Stanhope 



GEEAT OFFICERS OF STATE 3 

and Sunderland as among the early Prime Ministers,* and 
their portraits certainly hang in the Speaker's Gallery of 
the House of Commons. But as they never enjoyed any 
position analogous to that of Walpole or of the majority of 
his successors, and as neither the idea nor the continuity of 
the office had then been established, the consensus of 
historical opinion has rarely admitted their claim.f 

The office of First Lord of the Treasury had itself under- 
gone several modifications during the course of centuries, 
though its evolution is less remarkable than that of the 
power with which it was henceforward to be associated. 

Since very early times the executive government of 
England had been administered through the nine Great 
Officers of State — the High Steward, Chancellor, High 
Treasurer, President of the Council, Keeper of the Privy 
Seal, Great Chamberlain, Marshal, High Constable and 
Admiral. Of these the first, third and sixth are not to 
be confounded with the minor but- similarly named officials 
of the Royal Household (e.g., senescallus totius Anglice and 
senescallus hospitii regis). In nine hundred years the 
respective importance of these offices has naturally varied. 
Some have increased in authority, some have diminished, 
some have almost entirely disappeared. By the time that 
Parliament had begun to fimction in the thirteenth century, 
the High Steward, the prime officer of State, had ceased 
to exist. His power, which was almost regal, had been 
found to be too great. J Since then he has only been 
appointed for limited and special occasions. By the 
Reformation, three more, the Great Chamberlain, the 
Marshal and the High Constable, two of them hereditary 
and two largely concerned with feudal or heraldic duties, 
were no longer of real weight in the government. Of the 
remainder the Admiral adiered to his own affairs, while 
the Chancellor, though he still exercised a potent influence 
in Council and was often the King's principal adviser, yet 
tended more and more to be the first officer of the law 

* Eosebery, " Miscellanies," ii. 

t Paul, 95, 134. Lecky, i. 507. Macaulay, vii. 410. Ewald, 3. 
X Haydn, 99. Hearne, ii. 1. The Saxon Justiciar, the lieutenant 
of the kingdom, disappeared at about the same time. 



4 THE OFFICE OF PRIME MINISTEE, 

and of its highest court. Thus it came about that on the 
Treasurer, the President of the Council and the Keeper of 
the Privy Seal, fell the chief consideration of State affairs 
and the direction of the regular administration. 

Of these three the senior was the Treasurer. By virtue of 
his office he took precedence of all lay peers except the 
Chancellor — a matter then of some moment — and by his 
control of the revenue and expenditure he bulked more 
largely in the eyes of the Sovereign and of Parliament than 
did his two colleagues. From Queen Elizabeth's day 
onward whenever there was a first minister he was nearly 
always the Treasurer; and by the Restoration the custom 
had already begun of placing the of&ce in commission as 
being either too powerful or too onerous to be held by a 
single individual — a course which was soon followed as 
regards the place of the Admiral. After the Revolution 
this tendency became more pronounced. But though the 
dignity and the duties were lessened or divided by this 
system of a committee, the First Commissioner or First 
Lord of the Treasury as he came to be styled, always re- 
tained the predominant place at his own board and often 
held it in the Council also. 

Such was the position when on the day before her death 
Queen Anne put the Lord Treasurer's white staff for the 
last time into the hands of a subject — Charles Talbot, Duke 
of Shrewsbury — and by so doing materially contributed to 
ensuring the Protestant succession. Shrewsbury only held 
the post until the arrival of King George I. some weeks later. 
Since then the Treasury has always been in commission, and 
the principal commissioner has nearly always been the King's 
chief adviser and minister. ' ' The patronage of the Treasury, ' ' 
said Fox, " is so great, that whoever filled it must have 
much more power than any other member of the Cabinet."* 

But there was another and less patent reason why the 
first minister should preside over the Treasury. In the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was at the Treasury 
that the secret service money was disbursed. One of its 
principal uses was the distribution of bribes to members of 
* See also Kosebery, " Chatham," 342, 343. 



FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY 5 

Parliament, and, as Fox justly remarked, no minister could 
lead tlie House of Commons without being informed on this 
question. Indeed, the actual management of the House 
was so closely connected with the Treasury that the 
Patronage Secretary and the Junior Lords have gradually 
developed into the Chief and other Whips of the ministry. 

At times the Prime Minister has presided over another 
department ; but, speaking generally, for two hundred years 
the position of the head of the government has been united 
with that of First Lord of the Treasury. The exceptions 
are Lord Chatham, who was Lord Privy Seal, and Lord 
Salisbury, who was successively Foreign Secretary and 
Lord Privy Seal on two occasions, whilst leading an 
administration. 

As regards departmental work, the Lord Treasurer or 
First Lord of the Treasury originally concerned himself with 
the fiscal duties of his office, and he was often Chancellor 
of the Exchequer and Under-Treasurer also when he sat in 
the Commons. But as higher political matters claimed 
his attention the purely financial business was relegated 
to his lieutenant, who latterly has invariably been a member 
of the Lower House. The two places have not now been 
held together for nearly ninety years, except in the case of 
Mr. Gladstone during portions of his first two governments. 

The salary of the First Lord of the Treasury has varied 
from time to time in the course of two centuries. As a rule, 
however, it has been in the neighbourhood of £5,000 a year, 
to which was frequently added from £1,500 to £2,500 in 
respect of the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Quite 
recently a recommendation has been made to Parliament for 
increasing the amount to £7,000 per annum. In addition 
a good house and garden, free of rates and taxes, is assigned 
to the First Lord of the Treasury at No. 10, Downing Street, 
while, by the gift of Lord Lee of Fareham, Chequers in the 
Chiltern Hills, a country estate and house with sufficient 
capital to maintain them, has been settled in per- 
petuity on the Prime Minister for the time being. Thus 
the total remuneration received may roughly be assessed 
at the equivalent in cash and kind of some £10,000 a year. 



6 THE OFFICE OF PRIME MINISTER 

The house in Downing Street, called after Sir George 
Downing, a Secretary of State in the time of King 
Charles II., was originally offered to Sir Robert Walpole by 
King George II. as a private residence. * Walpole refused it 
on those conditions, but accepted it as an official dwelling- 
place for himself and his successors at the Treasury. 
Formerly part of the old Palace of Whitehall, and adjoining 
the Treasury buildings, its style, interior, and historical 
associations make it eminently suitable for the purpose to 
which it has been assigned. 

The Prime Minister as such possesses no distinctive 
uniform and, like other Cabinet Ministers, he wears on 
State occasions the ordinary full-dress of a privy councillor. 
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, inherits from 
his predecessor a black silk robe heavily embroidered 
with gold and similar in appearance to that worn by the 
Lord Chancellor and the Lords Justices. In this robe the 
earlier Prime Ministers are often shown in their pictures. 

Not until 1907 was the official position of the Prime 
Minister formally recognized, the place then assigned to 
him in the scale of precedence being that of the former Lord 
Treasurer, after the Lord Chancellor and before the Lord 
President of the Council. He is thus the second, not the 
first, lay subject in the realm. He accepts his place from 
the King, not by the delivery of a staff or a seal, nor by a 
declaration in Council, as do other high officials of State, 
but by kissing hands like an ambassador. He receives no 
letters patent, his appointment being merely notified in 
the Court Circular, though his commission at the Treasury 
is gazetted. " A Prime Minister is so," says Lord 
Courtney, " by virtue of the fact that he was the first to 
receive the summons of the Sovereign, and it was on his 
invitation that others have joined him."f 

Lord Melbourne, in two letters to Queen Victoria written 
in November, 1841, says : "How the power of Prime Minister 
grew up into its present form it is difficult to trace pre- 
cisely, as well as how it became attached, as it were, to the 
office of First Commissioner of the Treasury. But Lord 
* Hervey, ii. 89, note. f Courtney, 115. 



HIS TITLE 7 

Melbourne apprehends that Sir Robert Walpole was the 
first man in whose person this union of powers was decidedly 
established, and that its being so arose from the very great 
confidence which both George I. and George II. reposed in 
him, and from the difficulty which they had in transacting 
business, particularly George I., from their imperfect 
knowledge of the language of the country. ..." 

" Prime Minister is a term belonging to the last century. 
Lord Melbourne doubts its being to be found in English 
parliamentary language previously. Sir Robert Walpole 
was always accused of having introduced and arrogated to 
himself an office previously unknown to the Law and Con- 
stitution, that of Prime or Sole Minister, and we learn . . . 
that in his own family Lord North would never suffer him- 
self to be called Prime Minister, because it was an office 
unknown to the Constitution."* 

The word Premier, an abbreviation of Premier Minister, 
began to come into use about the middle of the eighteenth 
century and is synonymous with that of Prime Minister. 

The designation has now become stereotyped, though its 
attributes still remain vague and expansible or the reverse, 
according to the character of the holder. The Prime 
Minister's power, says Lord Rosebery, " is mainly personal, 
the power of individual influence, "f Strictly speaking only 
'primus inter pares in the Cabinet on occasions he is much 
more or much less. One man may be a Grand Vizier or a 
Mayor of the Palace, another a roi faineant or a chairman 
of committee. His duties are now so multifarious that his 
secretariat is developing into a department, and they are 
so constantly changing that any detailed description of 
them would be ephemeral. In Lord Esher's words, " He 
is the supreme co-ordinating authority, a function which 
is perhaps the most important of his high office. "J 
" As the architect and constructor of the Cabinet — Lord 
Morley calls him its ' keystone ' — it is his function to hold 
it together, and on his death or retirement the Cabinet is 

* " Letters of Queen Victoria," i. 447-450. 
t Rosebery, " Miscellanies," i. 201. 
% Esher, " King Edward," 147. 



8 THE OFFICE OF PRIME MINISTER 

automatically dissolved, though it may be re-formed 
under another chief," The Cabinet being " the buckle 
which fastens the legislative part of the State to the 
executive part,"* the potential power of its principal 
member is necessarily very great. As the Crown is the 
fountain of honour, so " the Treasury is the spring of 
business, "f and the fact that the individual who directs 
the destinies of the British Empire is still supposed, if 
only in name, to control the finances of the mother country 
epitomizes to some extent the past history and perhaps 
confirms the future of the first commercial nation in the 
world. 

The Prime Minister, besides being the leader of the 
government and of that House of the Legislature in 
which he sits, is almost invariably the leader of one of 
the chief political parties, or of a section of one. This 
entails upon him duties quite distinct from those of his 
office, and the two ideas not infrequently clash. On 
the one hand he is the trustee of the principles of his 
supporters, who have helped to place him where he is 
and who alone can maintain him there; on the other 
he is responsible to the Crown for the administration of 
public affairs. Should he forfeit the confidence of either 
he must count the cost. 

In addition he is usually called upon to fulfil other 
employments incident to or resulting from his high standing 
in th e State . As an E cclesiastical Commissioner or an Elder 
Brother of the Trinity House, he may light upon a sinecure, 
but as Chancellor of a University or Governor of a public 
foundation he may suffer very considerable inroads upon 
his limited leisure. 

There is one final position which a Prime Minister, if he 
rises rightly to his high trust, can always command — the 
first place after his Sovereign in the estimation of his 
fellow-countrymen. This, if he has earned it, is seldom 
denied him, though few achieve that mark of affection 
shown in a national nickname like "Billy Pitt,'' "The 
Duke,""Pam," or " Dizzy." 

* Bagehot, 85. f Ihid. 



HIS POSITION 9 

" Men in great place," says Bacon, " are thrice servants 
— servants of the sovereign or State, servants of fame, 
and servants of business"; and he accords them the first 
degree of honour among subjects, as " participes curarum, 
those upon whom princes do discharge the greatest weight 
of their affairs." With this Milton agrees. " Whosoever in 
a state," he says, " knows how wisely to form the manners 
of men and to rule them at home and in war with excellent 
institutes, him in the first place, above others, I should 
esteem worthy of all honour." 



CHAPTEE I 
THE WALPOLE EEA 

WALPOLE AND WILMINGTON 

The Eevolution of 1688 settled a controversy that had 
continued for two hundred years. Since the accession of 
the Tudors the power of the Crown had greatly increased, 
had been rudely curtailed and had again striven to rise to 
its former height. But in the course of the seventeenth 
century both Parliament and the country had learnt 
much. They now benefited by their experience, exercised 
their strength and won the victory. Indeed, all the cards 
were in their hands. The Sovereign's private revenues 
were no longer sufficient to maintain a standing army; the 
principles of taxation had been stabilized ; and only through 
the grant of supplies could government be carried on. 
The Crown was soon further to be weakened by the fact 
that the three next monarchs to succeed all owed their 
title to Parliament, and that two of them were foreigners. 
The House of Lords had also lost in collective authority 
though the principal peers still controlled many boroughs, 
and so could make their influence indirectly felt ; the most 
potent of them were the so-called Revolution families — 
the great Whig houses of Cavendish, Russell, Manners, 
Bentinck and Fitzroy, with their many connections. The 
House of Commons had thus become the predominant 
partner in the Legislature, and the Bill of Rights was 
principally concerned with making that position clear. 

King William III., however, was an exceptionally alert 
and intrepid man. By birth he was half an Englishman 
and he had had a continental upbringing, a formidable 

10 



WALPOLE: EARLY LIFE 11 

combination. Aided by circumstances lie was able to 
withstand to some extent tlie new ideas. But under his 
indolent and nervous sister-in-law matters changed and 
in the subsequent reign the tendency towards democracy, 
as it was then styled, became even more emphasized. 
The House of Commons had begun to come into their own, 
and the man who led the House of Commons was likely to 
be a personage of the first importance. 

From similar causes and at much the same time, the 
Whig party obtained an exceptionally long lease of power. 
The King relied on them, the Lords supported them, and 
the rising commercial interests of the country were in 
sympathy with them. This tide in the affairs of men was 
taken at the flood by a capable Whig member of Parliament 
whose name was Robert Walpole. He became himself 
the first Prime Minister of England, and he transmitted 
the heritage of that office to his successors for the next 
two centuries. 

I.— WALPOLE 

Robert Walpole, afterwards first Earl of Orford, was born 
on August 26, 1676, at Houghton in Norfolk. He was 
one of nineteen children, the third son of Robert Walpole, 
a country gentleman of that place, by Mary, daughter of 
Sir Jefltrey Burwell of Rougham in Suffolk. The Walpole 
family had been established at Houghton for many 
generations (Shirley says that they were there in King 
Stephen's time),* and though not closely allied with any of 
the great territorial magnates, they were essentially a solid 
East Anglian stock, devoted to the care of their estates, 
county business and rural sports. They were comfortably 
circumstanced for their position, the estate producing over 
£2,000 per annum, and for several generations they had 
represented the locality in Parliament. Sir Edward, 
Robert's grandfather, sat in the Restoration House of 
Commons, and his son was member for Castle Rising 
during the last twelve years of the seventeenth century. 

There was, however, none too much money to spare, and 
* Shirley, 147. 



12 WALPOLE 

after some years of private teaching at Massingham, a 
neighbouring village, Kobert Walpole was sent, at tbe age 
of fourteen, to Eton as a King's Scholar. Not very much 
is known of him there, but he was considered a good classic 
and was especially fond of Horace. He also had the re- 
putation of industry and some renown as a speaker. In 
1696 he went on to King's College, Cambridge, again as a 
scholar. While there he nearly died of smallpox, but 
recovered through the care of an old Tory doctor named 
Brady, who is reported to have said: " We must take care 
to save this young man, or we shall be accused of having 
purposely neglected him because he is so violent a Whig."* 
Two years later Walpole found himself heir to his paternal 
estates by the death of his elder brothers, and he then 
resigned his scholarship. He had been intended for the 
Church, but his prospects having altered he now turned to 
those politics which he already preferred. 

In August, 1700, he married Catherine, the beautiful 
daughter of John Shorter, a Norway merchant, and grand- 
daughter of a former Lord Mayor of London. She brought 
him then and subsequently some considerable fortune. 
Several years later her younger sister, Charlotte, married 
Francis, Lord Conway, a son of Sir Edward Seymour, ex- 
Speaker, and father of the first Marquess of Hertford and of 
Field-Marshal Conway. From these alliances resulted a 
close and abiding friendship between the Walpole and 
Seymour families. Of Walpole's younger brothers, 
Horatio, afterwards Lord Walpole of Wolterton, became a 
diplomat, and his constant supporter at home and abroad. 
He was the ancestor of the present Lord Orford. Of his 
sisters, two married Norfolk squires, while the third, 
Dorothy, became the wife of Lord Townshend, for many 
years her brother's political colleague and rival. 

In the same year as his marriage Walpole lost his father, 
and a few months later he entered Parliament as member for 
the family borough of Castle Eising, which he subsequently 
exchanged for that of King's Lynn. He began at once to 
distinguish himself. In 1703 and 1704 Stanhope and 
* Coxe, " Walpole," i. 4. 



IN OFFICE 13 

Spencer Compton are already writing to him to urge his 
attendance at the House, as the Whigs depended upon him.* 
At this time the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough were 
on the full tide of their career. They recognized Walpole's 
ability, while his merits, aided by their protection and that 
of Godolphin, rapidly brought him forward. A consistent 
Whig he interested himself actively in the business of the 
House of Commons, where he soon obtained a great and 
growing influence. In 1705 he was appointed one of the 
Council of Admiralty, in 1708 Secretary of War, and in 
1709 Treasurer of the Navy — " by my interest wholly," 
says the Duchess of Marlborough.f He thus acquired 
early in his political life an invaluable experience of the 
conduct of public afiairs during the notable campaigns 
that were then being carried on under the first captain of 
the age. He also made his mark as a financier, turning his 
attention especially to commercial afiairs, while his manage- 
ment of the House of Commons was so successful that he 
soon became the accepted leader of the Whig party in it. 
He was in the close confidence of Marlborough, the Captain- 
General, and of Godolphin, the Lord Treasurer, whose for- 
tunes, however, were by now on the wane. From the Nether- 
lands Marlborough writes to him early in June, 1710: " I am 
so very uneasy at the humour and temper that is now in the 
court that I dare not trust my own judgment, fearing I 
might hurt my friend, so that I desire that you will show 
my letter which comes at the same time as this to 6 (Sunder- 
land) and that he will advise with our friends, for however 
uneasy itt may be to mee, I am desirous you should give in 
answere to 42 (the Queen) what they shall resolve upon 
concerning 256 (Mrs. Masham's) brother; if they approve 
of my letter you must then read it to 42 (the Qu een) . " | And 
again on August 28 : "I have received the favour of yours 
of the 8th that as well as the rest of my letters brought 
me the surprising news of the white staf being taken from 
lord treasurer. 39 (Marlborough) has for some time been 

* Coxe, " Walpole," i. 4. 

t " Marlborough Correspondence," ii. 160. 

J Coxe, " Walpole," ii. 22. 



14 WALPOLE 

prepared for these mortefycations, lie at this distance can't 
see where this will end, but he is sure to the best of his 
understanding he will act like an honest man, and whilst 
employed doe what he shall judge best for his queen and 
country, and as he relyes on the friendship of 273 (Walpole) 
he must desire to hear often from him."* 

The affairs of the Whigs very soon came to grief. Marl- 
borough, Sunderland and Godolphin were dismissed, and 
Walpole shared in their fall. Harley and St. John came 
into power, and the end of the war with France and pre- 
parations for the Treaty of Utrecht rapidly followed. The 
Tories now turned venomously upon Walpole, expelled him 
from the House and committed him to the Tower on a 
charge of peculation. It was said that one of his friends 
had received a commission of a thousand guineas on a public 
contract with Walpole's connivance. But his party rallied 
round him, and his popularity brought him a daily levee 
while he was imprisoned. He was quickly liberated, and 
was again returned to Parliament stronger than ever among 
his own people. 

For the next two years he remained in opposition, occupy- 
ing himself largely with writing pamphlets and developing 
that system of political warfare which he subsequently 
made so effective. The principal Tories were believed to be 
coquetting with the Pretender, while Walpole as a strong 
Whig and an ardent advocate of religious toleration was 
a protagonist of the Protestant succession. He was on 
the winning side, and when the death of Queen Anne in 1714 
again changed the ministry the Tories disappeared from 
office for more than forty years. 

With the arrival of King George I. in England the second 
period of Walpole's life may be said to begin. As a loyal 
and leading Whig and a brother-in-law of Townshend, the 
new Secretary of State, he was appointed Paymaster to the 
Forces, then one of the most lucrative places in the 
government, and was sworn of the Privy Council on the 
same day as the Prince of Wales, the Archbishop of York 
and Stanhope, Townshend's colleague. 
* Coxe, " V^alpole," i. 34. 



IN THE CABINET 15 

He was now upon the high road to success. His five 
years' experience in the principal spending departments 
of the State had marked him out as well fitted to control 
its finances. Accordingly, in October 1715, he was 
appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the 
Exchequer in an administration led by Townshend, Sunder- 
land, Stanhope and himself, though none of them was 
definitely first minister. Walpole gradually became the most 
important figure in it, though he was much hampered by the 
fact that he could not speak French. As George I. knew no 
English, their conversation had to be carried on in dog 
Latin. Largely for this reason the King ceased to attend 
the meetings of the Cabinet, while the minister's power 
proportionately increased. 

During nearly eighteen months Walpole was principally 
concerned with the impeachment of Oxford and Boling- 
broke, the suppression of the Jacobite insurrection and the 
punishment of its leaders. But he was not vindictive, and 
he used his power with moderation — one of the earliest 
statesmen to do so. Sunderland and Stanhope, however, 
were bent upon getting rid of Townshend, and probably of 
Walpole also. While the King was in Hanover intrigues 
were started which Walpole was unable to defeat, and early 
in 1717 Townshend was dismissed from his office. Walpole 
would not desert his friend and at once resigned. In his 
interview with the King on March 10 he said, speaking 
of his colleagues to whom the royal favour had now been 
given: " They will propose to me, both as Chancellor of the 
Exchequer and in parliament such things that if I agree to 
support them my credit and reputation will be lost; and if 
I disapprove or oppose them, I must forfeit your Majesty's 
favour. For I in my station, though not the author, must 
be answerable to my King and my country for all the 
measures which may be adopted by administration."* 
These remarks are noteworthy as being one of the first 
definite enunciations of parliamentary and ministerial 
responsibility. The King endeavoured to persuade him 
to remain, and put the seals back in his hat as many 
* Coxe, " Walpole," i. 107. 



16 WALPOLE 

as ten times, but Walpole adhered to his decision and left 
the government. 

He stayed out of office for three years and the real 
extent of his power was quickly understood, for only with his 
approval could the ministers pass their bills, so great was 
his influence in the House of Commons. At this time the 
government were encouraging the disastrous venture of 
the South Sea Company, a scheme which Walpole had 
opposed, though it is said that by judicious speculation in it 
he had been able to increase his own private fortune. The 
country went wild and invested large sums of money, until 
in 1720 came the bursting of the whole bubble. One minister 
was expelled the House, another killed himself, the govern- 
ment were in the direst straits, and Walpole's financial 
knowledge and advice became a necessity. He was recalled 
to office as Paymaster-General, and presented a scheme for 
salvaging what was possible out of the wreck and for re- 
pairing to some extent the public credit. His plan was 
approved, and shortly afterwards, on April 3, 1721, he was 
definitely installed at the head of the administration as First 
Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
This date is usually received as the first occasion on which 
there was a real Prime Minister, and it marks the beginning 
of the third portion of Walpole's history. 

Hitherto the King had not been particularly well disposed 
to Walpole, but he now began to recognize the value of his 
consummate abilities to the dynasty and to the State. 
Walpole had also obtained the friendship of the Princess of 
Wales, a woman of remarkable charm, tact and insight, 
whose influence was subsequently to be of much assistance 
to him. Other circumstances helped him. Sunderland and 
Stanhope, his former opponents, both died, and Pulteney 
shortly afterwards left the government. Walpole was thus 
left with few competitors of his own level. Townshend 
stayed on for a time, but the brothers-in-law were no 
longer on good terms. " The firm," said Walpole, " is 
now going to be the firm of Walpole and Townshend, and 
not the firm of Townshend and Walpole as it used to be."* 
* Macaulay, vi. 42. 



AS PEIME MINISTER 17 

The temper of the two men was incompatible, and on one 
occasion they had something very like a free fight in a 
private house,* to which the scuffle between Peachum and 
Lockit in the " Beggar's Opera " is said to have alluded, 
though Macheath was also regarded as a slap at Walpole. 
Townshend eventually retired, and it is to his credit that he 
never afterwards entered into opposition. 

For twenty-one years Walpole now guided the fortunes 
of his country, and during nearly the whole of that long 
period he kept England at peace. He had already given 
indications of his financial policy by devising a general 
sinking fund. He followed this up by introducing the ideas 
of Free Trade. He removed the duties on many raw 
material imports, as well as on certain exports, and he 
examined into the excise question. His foreign policy was 
to expand the Colonial connection, to cultivate friendship 
with France and to promote peace in Europe. Those were 
halcyon days: " Ce Jut un temps heureux," says Voltaire, 
" pour toutes les nations."'\ In the third year of Walpole's 
administration there was only one division in the House 
of Commons. J 

The Cabinet at this time consisted of some twelve 
members, all of whom, with the exception of Walpole and 
occasionally one other, sat in the House of Lords. His 
position in the House of Commons had become supreme, 
for the influence which he had obtained was supplemented 
by the secret service funds and his rivals had disappeared. 
Thus his power rose to a pitch never previously known. 
With the King his relations were intimate and cordial, 
though he often had to fight the German favourites. There 
is a tale of his turning upon one in the royal closet and 
saying " Mentiris impudentissime'% 

In 1725 he was created a Knight of the Bath and the year 
after a Knight of the Garter, being the first commoner to 
receive that honour for two generations. On several 
occasions he was offered a peerage, but this he refused for 
himself, though he accepted it for his eldest son. When he 

* Hervey, i. 117, note. f Voltaire, " Siecle de Louis XV.," 37. 

X Green, iv. 10. § Jennings, 110. 



18 WALPOLE 

could get away from Richmond, where he usually lived, 
he posted off to Norfolk to hunt or to shoot. Indeed, to 
the end of his life he followed the hounds, and it was 
always said that the first letter he opened in the morning 
was that of his gamekeeper. But he was not entirely de- 
pendent upon outdoor sports for his amusements, and it 
was about this time that he began to rebuild Houghton 
and to form the magnificent collection of pictures which 
swallowed up so much of his fortune. 

In 1727 George I. died, and his son came to the throne. 
The change of rulers might have meant a great deal and 
for some days Walpole's place was in danger. The Queen, 
however, took his part, and the King's choice, Compton, 
was manifestly unequal to his task. He was obliged to 
have recourse to Walpole when drafting the King's speech, 
and Walpole was not slow in improving his opportunity. 
When the Queen's dowry came to be mentioned Compton 
suggested £50,000 a year. Walpole offered double that 
figure and also promised to induce the House of Commons 
to increase the Civil List by £100,000. This settled the 
question. The King sent for him, and said: " Consider, Sir 
Robert, what makes me easy in this matter will prove for 
your ease too ; it is for my life it is to be fixed, and it is for 
your life."* The bargain was honestly kept. 

When he was Prince of Wales George II. had been very 
ready to criticize the leading Whigs. " Walpole," he used 
to say, " was a great rogue, Newcastle an impertinent fool, 
and Townshend a choleric blockhead." But as time went 
on his opinions altered, and in his later days he swore by 
Walpole. After the battles in the House of Commons he 
used to exclaim, with tears in his eyes: " He is a brave 
fellow; he has more spirit than any man I ever knew."t 
Walpole, however, took a less flattering view of the King, for 
he once remarked : " He thinks he is devilish stout, and that 
he never gives up his will or his opinion, but he never acts in 
anything material but when I have a mind that he should." J 

The conduct of the government, however, was not quite 
so easy in the new reign as it had been before. Walpole 

* Hervey, i. 44. f Ibid., i. 186. % Morley, " Walpole," 92. 



HIS POWER WANING 19 

had admitted to the Cabinet men like Newcastle, Pelham 
and Compton, now Lord Wilmington, who, though more 
complacent, were less able than his former colleagues, 
Pulteney and Carteret. These two, with Bolingbroke 
behind them, now started an opposition which later on 
was joined by Lord Cobham and his following, Pitt 
and the Grenvilles. For the time Walpole's ascendancy 
remained dominant. But his policy was by no means 
always popular. His Excise Bill, a reasonable enough 
measure, he withdrew in 1733 because of the enmity it 
aroused. He would not be the man, he said, to lay on taxes 
at the cost of blood. His removal of the restrictions on 
Colonial trade were not well received by various interests at 
home. Three years later his refusal to allow the Test Acts 
to be repealed lost him favour with the Dissenters, and 
both in Scotland and Ireland there was much dissatisfaction. 
Nevertheless, he managed to maintain his position with 
practically undiminished power until the death of the Queen 
in 1737. With her he lost his chief friend at Court. Her 
last words to him as he stood by her bedside were: " I 
recommend His Majesty to you."* 

Real difficulties now began. In the general election of 
1734 Walpole's majority in Parliament had been lessened. 
The King favoured a war policy on the Continent, with 
which Walpole disagreed. The new Prince of Wales, who 
was bitterly hostile to the King, kept a court of his own at 
Leicester House and was the centre of the Opposition, 
which was becoming strong and effective. Finally, in the 
Cabinet some would-be rivals were arising. 

In 1737 Walpole lost his wife, and a few months later he 
married Maria Skerret, his mistress, who also died within the 
the year. His health was not as good as it had been, for 
he had suffered from several severe attacks of gout which 
had weakened his energy. Once or twice he offered to 
resign, but the King pressed him to stay on, which he 
was not unwilling to do. But though he was as masterful 
as ever, his influence had narrowed and in 1739, against 
his better judgment though in compliance with the wishes 
* Coxe, " Walpole," i. 552. 



20 WALPOLE 

of the King and of most of his colleagues, he consented to 
the war against Spain. The decision ran counter to all his 
beliefs. " They are ringing the bells now," he said, " but 
they will soon be wringing their hands."* 

Despite his new policy, the opposition of Whig seceders 
continued, and his own party were not as subservient as 
they had been. In 1741 a definite motion was made for 
his removal from all his offices and from the King's councils. 
It was defeated, but his position was seriously shaken. 
Onslow, the Speaker, says that at this time Walpole had 
become remiss in his care for the new Parliament, and had 
underrated the strength of his opponents. He had been 
too long in power. Early in 1742 a strong and united attack 
was led against him by Pulteney and Carteret, with whom 
Newcastle and Wilmington were secretly intriguing. His 
friends saw that the end was near, though Walpole thought 
them in a panic and was ready to hold on. He fought hard, 
but his majorities grew less and less, and on February 2, 
on the Chippenham election petition, he was defeated 
amidst the wild cheers of his opponents. He walked out 
of the House erect, calm and cheerful, and a few days 
later the London Gazette announced that he had resigned 
all his places and had been created Earl of Orford. He 
had been Prime Minister for twenty-one years, the longest 
period for which that office has been held in the history 
of England. Had he wished it he could probably have 
been Lord Treasurer also. He said in one of his final 
speeches: "I who refused a white staff and a peerage."-)- 

Wilmington replaced him as a figurehead, with Carteret 
in the background, while many of the former ministry 
remained on. But they soon began to fall out among 
themselves. Walpole had succeeded in forcing Pulteney 
into the House of Lords, and in so effacing him. The 
Pelhams were to a large extent his own creatures. The 
King still relied upon his advice. Thus it came about that 
within a year of his leaving office he exercised nearly as much 
power as before. J The various charges of peculation and 

* Macaulay, " Walpole," vi. 28. f Jennings, 109. 

t Morley, " Walpole," 247. 



EESIGNATION AND DEATH 21 

motions for impeacliment that were brought against him 
were speedily dropped. Wilmington died the next year, 
and Walpole was soon able to get rid of Carteret and to 
confirm as Prime Minister Henry Pelham, who depended 
almost entirely upon his old chief for guidance and support. 

But Walpole's time was done. His health was failing, 
and in the House of Lords he knew that he could never be 
the central figure. He withdrew to Houghton, and tried 
to interest himself in his pictures and his trees, lamenting 
his little knowledge of books. Gout had pursued him all 
his life, and worse complications now followed. But he 
kept up his spirits, and though sufiering torments of pain 
from stone struggled up to London at the King's request 
early in 1745. This was the end. His case was beyond 
remedy, and after several operations, which he bore 
with unfailing fortitude, he died on March 18 at his 
house in Arlington Street, and was buried quietly at 
Houghton. 

Walpole's family by his first wife consisted of three sons, 
of whom Robert succeeded to the title and estates and left 
an only child, who died without issue. The second son, 
Sir Edward, for some time Chief Secretary for Ireland, had 
three illegitimate daughters, one of whom was afterwards 
famous as the beautiful Duchess of Gloucester. Horace, 
the third, was the literary celebrity. His parentage is open 
to considerable doubt. He eventually became the fourth 
and last earl of the first creation, and died in 1797 un- 
married. Of the daughters, Mary, the elder, married 
George, Earl of Cholmondeley, and the present marquess 
is now Sir Robert's heir of line. 

In appearance Walpole was a big, square man, well set up, 
high-complexioned, fair and good-looking. 

" Such were the lively eyes and rosy hue 
Of Robin's face when Robin first I knew."* 

In later life he became very corpulent, " avec ce gros 
corps, ces jamhes enflees et ce vilain ventre," as Queen 
Caroline described him.| He was a typical healthy country 

* Montagu, ii. 483. t Hervey, i. 476. 



22 WALPOLE 

squire, devoted to outdoor sport, and he is said to have 
been the originator of the Saturday half-holiday so that he 
might get away to hunt. In Norfolk he kept open house 
and was a lavish entertainer, as profuse with his own 
money as he was careful with that of the State. His 
weaknesses were the table, the bottle and a somewhat 
excessive love of women, his amours with whom he was 
often too ready to recount. His conversation even for 
those days was broad. He used to say that '' he always 
talked bawdy at table, for in that all could join."* BlufE 
and pleasant in manner, he was generous, equable and 
easy of access. Yet he was not unconscious of his own 
merits. '' If I had not been Prime Minister," he said, " I 
should have been Archbishop of Canterbury."! Eancour 
he never nourished, though he could not always resist 
amusing himself at the expense of his foes. With his 
old patron Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, he had a 
standing feud. Much of her later correspondence is 
devoted to complaints about not being able to get leave 
to drive through St. James's Park or to build a suitable 
approach to Marlborougli House, where the lease of a 
residence immediately opposite had been acquired by the 
Prime Minister, not quite without intent. 

In business he was rapid, methodical and facile, an 
excellent financier and singularly honest. It has been said 
that he managed the House of Commons entirely by bribery, 
and there is no doubt that he made use of the methods 
which had long been common in English politics. But the 
corruption that he practised never came near to that of 
the time of Charles II. or of the early days of George III. 
Members were often paid for their votes, much in the same 
way that some members now have their election expenses 
found. Walpole merely carried on the ordinary practice, 
though he did it with more success than most of his pre- 
decessors. He is supposed to have been responsible for the 
saying that " Every man has his price," but the quotation 
is inaccurate. The real remark was made on a particular 
occasion and in allusion to certain definite individuals of 
* Boswell, iii. 57. f Green, iv. 127. 



HIS CHARACTER 23 

whom he said: "All these men have their price."* But, 
though he was not a cynic, he had few illusions. One of his 
favourite quotations was Princifihus placuisse viris non 
ultima laus est. 

Walpole was not an orator. His speeches were simple, 
straightforward and full of blunt common sense. " You 
will soon come off that and grow wiser,"f he used to say to 
budding reformers. But he could on occasion rise to high 
flights of eloquence or irony. In one of his final fights 
in the House of Commons, when the so-called patriots were 
assailing him, he finished his reply with the words: "A 
patriot. Sir — why, patriots spring up like mushrooms. I 
could raise fifty of them within the f our-and-twenty hours. 
I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing 
to gratify an unreasonable or insolent demand and up 
starts a patriot. "J 

Nearly all his contemporaries spoke well of him. Onslow 
called him " a wise and able minister, and the best man 
from the goodness of his heart, which was characteristic in 
him, to live with and to live under of any great man I ever 
knew."§ Dr. Johnson, though he had written against him, 
afterwards acknowledged his merits and likened him to " a 
fixed star," Chatham being a " meteor." Pulteney said he 
was of a temper so calm and equal and so hard to be pro- 
voked that he was very sure he never felt the bitterest 
invectives against him for half an hour.|| Chatham, who 
had fiercely attacked him in early life, said afterwards: 
" Sir Robert Walpole thought well of me and died in peace 
with me. He was a truly English minister."^ And most 
of these were his political opponents. 

A statesman of admirably shrewd sense and great force 
of character,** " he gave Englishmen no conquests, but he 
gave them peace, and ease, and freedom; the Three per 
Cents, nearly at par ; and wheat at five and six and twenty 
shillings a quarter, "ff 

* Hervev, i. 238. f Chesterfield, " Misc.Works," iv. 36 (Characters). 
X Coxe, " Walpole," i. 659. § Morley, " Walpole," 105. 
II Coxe, " Walpole," i. 756. ^ H. Walpole, " George II.," ii. 132. 
** Stephen, ii. 168. ft Thackeray, " Four Georges," 35, 36. 

3 



24 WALPOLE 

In the words of Hume he was '^ moderate in exercising 
power, not equitable in engrossing it."* 
Hanbury Williams says of him: 

" Thus was lie formed to govern and to please ; 
Familiar greatness, dignity with ease, 
Composed his frame, admired in every state, 
In private amiable, in public great. 
Gentle in power but daring in disgrace, 
His love was liberty, his wish was peace. 

Whose knowledge, courage, temper, all surprised, 
Whom many loved, few hated, none despised. "f 

This view is endorsed by Pope, seldom a kindly critic : 

" Seen him I have but in his happier hour 
Of social pleasure ill- exchanged for power; 
Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe. 
Smile without art and win without a bribe. 
Would he oblige me ? Let me only find 
He does not think me what he thinks mankind."J 

Enemies he had, of course, the old Duchess of Marlborough 
and Bolingbroke among the worst. They were clever enough 
to appreciate and dislike the honesty of one who all his life 
had been dealing with the hard facts of political morality 
at its lowest. But his best friends had both character 
and constancy — Queen Caroline, his brother Horatio, 
Devonshire and Henry Pelham, among the chief of them. 

In his book on Chatham, Lord Eosebery writes of 
Walpole: " He had the advantage of being brought up as a 
younger son to work, and thus he gained that self-reliance 
and pertinacious industry which served him so well through 
long years of high ofhce. From the beginning to the end 
he was primarily a man of business. Had he not been a 
politician it cannot be doubted that he would have been a 
great merchant or a great financier. And, though his lot 
was cast in politics, a man of business he essentially re- 
mained. . . . His first object was to carry on the business 
of the country in a business spirit, as economically and 
as peacefully as possible ... a hard-working man with 

* Macaulay, vi. 44. f Hanbury Williams, i. 207, 208. 

J Pope, " Epilogue to the Satires." 



HIS POLICY 25 

practical knowledge of afiairs and strong common sense; 
a sagacious man who hated extremes. He had besides the 
highest qualities of a parliamentary leader ... he had 
dauntless courage and imperturbable temper."* 

He belonged to that class of legislators, says Lecky, 
who recognize fully that all transitions to be safe should be 
the gradual product of public opinion, that the great end 
of statesmanship is to secure the nation's well-being . . . 
he combined an extreme and exaggerated severity of party 
discipline within Parliament with the utmost deference 
for the public opinion beyond its walls.f But with all 
this he kept the country quiet in what Carlyle calls a 
" sturdy deep-bellied, long-headed, John Bull kind of 
fashion. "J 

That Walpole was ambitious, that he monopolized 
power, that he was intolerant of rivalry, that he was some- 
thing of a cynic, that his conduct and his conversation were 
often coarse — these are but examples of those flaws of 
character that every human being must possess. He was 
the child of his age. With all his faults he served his 
country for a longer period than any other man has 
ever done in his high position and kept her longer in 
prosperity and peace. 

To his maxim Quieta non movere he adhered throughout 
his life, for he was a peace minister jpar excellence. " The 
most pernicious circumstances," he used to say, " in 
which this country can be are those of war."§ The 
w^ork he did was solid and enduring. He confirmed by 
a long and wise administration two cardinal points of 
the British constitution, the supremacy of the House of 
Commons and the responsibility of Cabinet government. 
He laid down two maxims of policy of hardly less im- 
portance, that for England peace is always better than war, 
and freedom of trade more profitable than its restraint. 
That these guiding principles should first have been made 
clear by a Whig minister was as valuable to that party 
as it was to the State. 

* Eosebery, " Chatham," 144-6. f Lecky, i. 329, 344. 

X Carlyle, " Frederick the Great," XII., xii. § Green, iv. 137. 



26 WILMINGTON 



II.— WILMINGTON 

Tlie Hon. Spencer Compton, afterwards Earl of Wil- 
mington, was born about 1673, the second surviving son of 
James, third Earl of Northampton, by his second wife, Mary 
Noel, daughter and heiress of Baptist, Viscount Campden. 
The Comptons were a rich and ancient family who were 
settled in the counties of Warwick and Northampton and 
connected with many noble lines. The third earl and his 
father had been ardent Eoyalists, and had spent blood and 
treasure on the King's side. Several of his brothers had 
been distinguished Cavalier leaders, and one had been made 
Bishop of London by King Charles II. So far the family 
had been strong supporters of the Crown. In 1681, how- 
ever. Lord Northampton died, and soon afterwards his 
eldest son and successor married a daughter of Sir Stephen 
Fox. Her half-brother, Henry Fox, was to become the 
first Lord Holland. Then came the Revolution. Bishop 
Compton had been suspended by King James and had 
materially helped his enemies. He now consented to 
crown the new King and Queen as Archbishop Sancroft 
had refused to take the oath of allegiance. The Comptons 
thus identified themselves with the Whigs. 

Spencer Compton was still a child at his father's death. 
He was brought up at his brother's house in the country 
and was first educated at St. Paul's School. He then 
took his degree at Trinity College, Oxford, as the son 
of a peer. Some years later he was called to the Bar 
at the Middle Temple, and for a little time he practised 
his profession. But in 1698, while travelling on the 
Continent, he was elected member for the Eye borough 
in Sufiolk. He at once enrolled himself on the Whig side 
of politics, the new party of his relations, and devoted 
himself to his work in Parliament. He was well off and a 
bachelor. The details of business interested him, and he 
had powerful connections. In 1705 he was chosen chair- 
man of the Committee of Privileges, and two years later 
he was made Treasurer to Prince George of Denmark. 




G. Kneller piiix. 



SPENCER COMPTON 

EARL OF WILMINGTON 



To face page 26 



AS SPEAKEE 27 

Walpole was one of his friends, and in 1709 they were 
colleagues on the committee for Sacheverell's impeach- 
ment. 

At the general election of 1710 Compton lost his seat, and 
did not come into Parliament again for three years. But 
he had thoroughly learnt the ways of the House of Commons, 
he was a good party man and he had some abilities. On 
the accession of George I. and the return of the Whigs to 
power he was chosen Speaker. In his first address, when 
submitting himself to the King's approval on this occasion, 
he observed that "he had neither memory to retain, 
judgment to collect, nor skill to guide their debates."* 
Notwithstanding this perfunctory modesty, he seems to 
have done his work passably well. 

Having had some experience of supervising royal 
finances, Compton was also appointed Treasurer to the 
Prince of Wales, who soon formed a high idea of his 
punctual and careful management of money. In 1722 the 
rich post of Paymaster- General was added to his other 
places by Walpole, so that he was at the same time a 
principal officer of the King, the Prince of Wales and the 
House of Commons, an unusual combination. 

These various duties he succeeded in fulfilling to general 
satisfaction, and in 1725 he was made a Knight of the Bath. 
He had now been for ten years Speaker, as well as head of 
the Prince of Wales's household, and he had become a person 
of much consideration. When, on the death of George I., 
Walpole announced that event to the new King, he was 
ordered to go for his instructions to Sir Spencer Compton. 
This meant that Compton was to be Prime Minister, and 
Walpole prepared to order himself accordingly. Compton, 
however, could not cope with such a task. He was obliged, 
as has already been mentioned, to ask Walpole's help in 
preparing the King's speech to the Council — a tale that is 
hard to believe of a Speaker.f Soon afterwards a question 
arose as to what figures should be proposed to Parliament 
for the new Civil List. Walpole outbid Compton; the 
Queen's influence was strong; the King was sensible; 
* Nat. Biog., xi. 450. f H. Walpole, " Letters," vii. 142. 



28 WILMINGTON 

and Walpole kept his place. But he was not forgetful of his 
old friend. As a consolation Compton was raised to the 
peerage as Lord Wilmington and shortly afterwards was 
advanced to an earldom. He was also appointed succes- 
sively Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council 
and in 1733 he was installed a Knight of the Garter. Ap- 
peased at this high rate, he did not show any jealousy of 
Walpole, though Hervey says that he " hated him in his 
heart."* Yet on one occasion, when suffering from fever, 
he even left his bed to go and vote for his leader, f 

By this time Wilmington was sixty years old. He had 
had a most prosperous career. He was rich, he was a peer, 
he was a Knight of the Garter, he held one of the first 
ofEces in the Cabinet, and he was a favourite of his 
Sovereign. It might well have been thought that he had 
reached his high-water mark. But he still remembered 
that he had once nearly been Prime Minister and he longed 
yet to occupy the place which he believed his merits 
deserved. As the years went on and there were signs that 
Sir Robert was not perhaps quite as omnipotent as he had 
been, Wilmington began to hanker and cast about for the 
succession. Friends and parasites were ready enough to 
egg him on, nor was he above intriguing with Newcastle and 
others of the same kidney. In 1739 there came a chance, 
but it did not materialize. Two years later, however, 
matters looked more promising. Walpole's policy on the 
Spanish War had estranged many of his adherents and he 
had become more slack in his control of the House of 
Commons. A strong cabal, led by able opponents, was 
banded together against him, and the Queen, his old 
friend, was dead. In 1741 the concerted attack was 
launched, and Wilmington voted against the Prime 
Minister. The latter carried the day, but early next 
year he was defeated. Newcastle, Carteret and Pulteney 
came to terms. Wilmington, to whom the King had 
always been attached, was to be their cover. The 
details of exactly how the change occurred are obscure, 
but it seems that when the crucial moment came the new 
* Hervey, i. 209. t Jennings, 109. 



AS PRIME MINISTER 29 

arrangements were made with Walpole's approval. When 
at last the hour struck, and the great minister relinquished 
the reins of power that he had held for more than twenty 
years, it was to Wilmington that they fell. 

Then, in Lord Rosebery's words, " there is a great crash, 
and the spectators expect to see the world in ruins. But 
when the dust has cleared away it is seen that things are 
much as they were ; Wilmington scarcely visible in Walpole's 
seat; Newcastle rooted in his own; Walpole with Pulteney 
his protagonist seated smug and dumb among the distant 
peers."* 

But though Wilmington succeeded to the name of Prime 
Minister he was a puppet whose strings were pulled by 
Carteret, while Walpole bulked large behind the throne. 
The position was well recognized by everyone. A ballad 
of Lord Hervey's, in which Carteret is supposed to address 
the King, thus describes it: 

" The Countess of Wilmington, excellent nurse, 
I'll trust with the Treasury, not with the purse. 
For nothing by her I've resolved shall be done : 
She shall sit at that board as you sit on the throne. "f 

While another rhyme of the times says : 

" See yon old dull important lord 
Who at the longed for money board 
Sits first but does not lead. 
His younger brethren all things make, 
So that the Treasury's like a snake, 
And the tail moves the head."{ 

Wilmington had achieved his ambition at last, but he was 
not long to enjoy it. By the end of the year he was away 
ill at Bath; he never recovered, and soon became unable to 
transact any business. Perhaps the principal event in his 
administration was the victory of Dettingen, where 
George 11. , then in the sixtieth year of his age, fought on 
foot against the French, while Carteret drove about the 
battlefield in a coach. § By July, 1743, Wilmington was dead. 

* Rosebery, " Chatham," 505. 

t H. Walpole, " Letters," I. 209. J Hanbury Williams, i. 139. 

§ H. Walpole, " Letters," III., i. 253. 



30 WILMINGTON 

His place was at once filled by Henry Pelham, the leader of 
the House of Commons. He had never married and his 
wealth passed to his nephew, the fifth Earl of Northampton, 
through whom much of it eventually descended to the 
family of Cavendish. 

There is a kitcat portrait of him by Kneller, in a velvet 
coat, with a long wig and a ribbon. His retreating chin 
and vacuous expression show neither looks nor intelligence 
though some signs of obstinacy. But he was not devoid of 
wit. Once, when he was in the Chair, a member who was 
being talked down complained that he had a right to be 
heard. " No, Sir," said the Speaker. " You have a right 
to speak, but the House has the right to judge whether it 
will hear you."* He is also credited with a remark about 
the Duke of Newcastle, " that he always lost half an hour 
in the morning which he was running after for the rest of 
the day without being able to overtake it."t 

For most of his life he lived in St. James's Square in a 
fine house that stood where the Army and Navy Club now 
is, and he also had a villa at Chiswick, where he indulged 
largely in the pleasures of the table. Horace Walpole 
thought him " the most solemn, formal man in the world, 
but a great lover of private debauchery "; J and Hervey 
describes him as " a plodding heavy fellow with great 
application but no talents, and vast complacence for a 
court without any address ; he was always more concerned 
for the manner and form in which a thing was to be done 
than about the propriety or expediency of the thing itself. 
. . . His only pleasures were money and eating; his only 
knowledge forms and precedents ; his only insinuations bows 
and smiles. "§ 

" Let Wilmington with grave contracted brow 
Eed tape and wisdom at tlie Council show, 
Sleep in the Senate, in the circle bow."|| 

Such were the views of his contemporaries, and it cannot 
be said that he has left any very different or more lasting 

* Jennings, 579. f H. Walpole, " George II.," i. 163. 

t Ibid., 178 n. § Hervej, i. 32, 33. || Ihid., ii. 156. 



SUCCESSION ESTABLISHED 31 

impression on succeeding ages. He is a nebulous form at 
the best, dominated by the more powerful figures that 
surround him, an insubstantial shadow following Walpole, 
much as Addington followed Pitt, sixty years later, or 
Goderich did Canning. Yet Wilmington filled for nearly 
thirty years the four highest places in the State to which a 
layman can aspire. He seems to have been honest, con- 
scientious, well-meaning and precise, perhaps even loyal 
as the times went, but as to character and talents he was 
little more than a cipher. It may be that he possessed 
other merits, but 

" Paulum sepultse distat inertise 
Celata virtus." 



A capital move had thus been made in the theory of a 
Prime Minister. In the long administration of Walpole 
the idea of a single chief to the Cabinet had been accepted, 
while Wilmington and Pelham's rapid succession to the 
post established some idea of continuity. Henceforward, 
though with occasional weaker links, an unbroken chain 
of first ministers of the Crown was to be maintained, 
ever gaining strength by the temper of its constituents, 
the suppleness of its hold and the tradition of its length. 



CHAPTER II 
THE PELHAMS 

PELHAM AND NEWCASTLE 

The rise of the family of Pelham is a remarkable 
instance of what could be done in the early part of 
the eighteenth century by the twin virtues of wealth and 
connection. 

Thomas Pelham, the son and heir of a Sussex baronet, 
had married Lady Grace Holies, daughter of Gilbert, third 
Earl of Clare. Her brother, the fourth earl, was the husband 
of Lady Margaret Cavendish, daughter and co-heiress of 
Henry, Duke of Newcastle, and on the latter's death with- 
out a son in 1691 Lord Clare succeeded to a part of his large 
estates and a considerable fortune. Two years later his 
kinsman. Lord Holies of Ifield, left him another property. 
The Holies family had a good record on the Whig and 
Protestant side, and at the Revolution Lord Clare had 
materially helped to promote the succession of the House of 
Orange. He was now an exceedingly rich man, and he 
procured from King William the revival of his father-in- 
law's dukedom for himself, though with some difficulty. 
Under Queen Anne he became Lord Privy Seal, and was 
then able to get a barony for Pelham, his sister's husband, 
whose elder boy, Thomas, he had determined to make his 
principal heir, having no sons himself. 

This Thomas Pelham had been born on July 21, 1693, and 
Henry, his younger brother, two years later. They had 
been brought up together at Halland Hall, their home in 
Sussex, and had both been sent to Westminster School. 
Thomas, however, had gone on to Clare Hall, Cambridge, 

32 



PEOGKESS OF THE FAMILY 33 

while Henry matriculated at Hart Hall, Oxford, under 
Dr. Richard Newton, who had previously been his tutor. 

Their father. Lord Pelham, as he had now become, was a 
good Whig, had been for many years member of Parliament 
for Sussex, and had held minor offices in the government. 
By a previous marriage he had had two daughters, one of 
whom was married to Charles, Viscount Townshend, after- 
wards Secretary of State and already a leading politician. 

In 1711 there were three deaths in the family, by all of 
which Thomas Pelham materially profited. First his 
uncle, the Duke of Newcastle, from whom he inherited a 
considerable portion of the vast Nottinghamshire estates 
and with them took the additional name of Holies. Next 
his father, to whose barony and patrimony of Halland Hall 
he also succeeded. Thirdly, his half-sister, Lady Towns- 
hend, whose husband, two years later, married Dorothy 
Walpole, sister of the future Prime Minister. 

In 1714 Queen Anne died. Young Lord Pelham was 
only just of age, but he declared himself a strong supporter 
of the Hanover succession; he was rich, he was related 
to half a dozen of the leading Whig families, and he 
was a brother-in-law, d la mode de Bretagne, of the leading 
man in the House of Commons. By this interest he was 
at once created Earl of Clare and made lord-lieutenant of 
the counties of Middlesex and Nottingham. 

Next year came the Jacobite rebellion. Thomas and 
his younger brother Henry raised a troop of horse in 
Sussex, and Henry went ofi to fight at Preston. As a 
reward Thomas was advanced to the dukedom of New- 
castle. He had thus attained the highest rank in the 
peerage at the age of twenty-two. Eighteen months later 
he married Lady Henrietta Godolphin, daughter of the 
second earl of that name and granddaughter of the Duke 
of Marlborough. This brought him into close relationship 
with Sunderland, who was then Secretary of State. When 
the split came between Sunderland and Walpole, New- 
castle left the latter and followed the former, for which he 
was made Lord Chamberlain and a privy councillor and 
was given the Garter. 



34 PELHAM 



I.— HENEY PELHAM. 

In the same year, 1717, Henry Pelham was first elected 
member for Seaf ord, and took his seat among the supporters 
of the government. After his short experiences as a 
volunteer he had made some journeys on the Continent. 
He now returned to England, but he did not deliver his 
maiden speech in the House of Commons until May, 1720. 
On the return of Walpole and Townshend to office a few 
weeks later, he was appointed to the post of Treasurer of the 
Chamber. Next year Walpole became Prime Minister, 
and Henry Pelham was given a place at the Treasury Board. 
Newcastle now renewed his old connection with Walpole, 
and on Carteret leaving the Cabinet in 1724 he suc- 
ceeded to his place as the Southern Secretary of State. 
A year later Pelham was made Secretary for War and sworn 
a privy councillor. In 1726 he married Lady Catherine 
Manners, daughter of John, second Duke of Rutland. 
Newcastle then made over to him half his paternal estate, 
and with the money thus received Pelham purchased Esher 
Place, near Claremont, his brother's fine house in Surrey. 
Here he spent all the time he could snatch from Parliament, 
taking great interest in his gardens, which Kent embellished 
and which Pope recalls : 

" Pleased let me own, in Ester's peaceful grove, 
(Where Kent and nature vie for Pelham's love,). . * 

Pelham was Walpole's firm friend and loyal supporter, 
more personally beloved by him than any man in England. | 

" Harry Pelham is now my support and delight, 
Whom we bubble all day and we joke on at night. "J 

He frequently acted as a mediator between his difficult 
brother Newcastle and Walpole. Newcastle, having got all 
he could in the way of titular rank, had now turned his 
attention to office. Determined to engross everything that 
he thought worth having in that direction, he devoted 
himself to the management and increase of the numerous 
boroughs that he controlled, and his parliamentary influence 

* Pope, " Epilogue to the Satires," ii. 66-9. f Hervey, i. 143. 

t Montagu, ii. 493. 



IN OFFICE 35 

gradually became very powerful. At the same time he 
attended with unremitting industry to his departmental 
duties, for he had few other tastes, rural pleasures never 
attracted him and his marriage was childless. He was 
neither intelligent, loyal, nor easy to get on with, but 
Walpole found his busy application not without its use. 

On George II. 's accession it looked as if the fortunes 
of the Pelham family might be obscured. Ten years 
previously the old King had imposed Newcastle on the 
Prince of Wales as a godfather to one of his children. The 
younger George had objected, and had called the luck- 
less Newcastle a rascal. The King, who would not 
tolerate such treatment of his Lord Chamberlain in his 
Palace of St. James, had in consequence turned the Prince 
out of doors. It might have been expected that with 
the new reign the old quarrel would be remembered. 
But it was not to be so. George 11. observed that 
Newcastle was not fit to be chamberlain to a petty 
German prince, and the ladies of the Court laughed at 
him and called him Est-il 'permis, the usual preface 
to his trite remarks; but he was kept on in his place as 
Secretary of State.* 

The steady progress of Henry Pelham also continued. 
In 1730 he was given the post of Paymaster-General. 
Besides the salary of £2,000 a year, it carried large profits 
with it, illicit but customary. From these, however, 
Pelham refused to benefit. This was the more to his credit 
as gambling was one of his principal recreations, and he 
needed a considerable income to recoup his losses, having 
nothing like the wealth of his elder brother. He still stuck 
closely to Walpole, to whom both friendship and interest 
bound him. Naturally of a quiet and pacific disposition, he 
was a man of courage where his friends were concerned. In 
1732 he had an altercation with Pulteney in the House of 
Commons which nearly led to a duel, and the next year 
he came boldly forward when quite alone and protected 
Sir Robert from the attack of a crowd of his opponents 
outside the House. He drew his sword and stood out, 
* Coxe, " Walpole," i. 329. 



36 PELHAM 

saying, "Now, gentlemen, who will be the first to fall ?"* 
Only on one occasion in all his career did he vote against 
his chief, a practice which was then by no means uncommon 
even with ministers. 

Newcastle was not nearly so faithful a colleague, and when 
Walpole's power began to show signs of declining he was 
one of the first to begin a correspondence with the Opposi- 
tion. He introduced several measures which embarrassed 
the Prime Minister, and on Queen Caroline's death he 
established a fresh interest at Court through the Princess 
Amelia. During the Spanish War he was perpetually 
wrangling and blustering, and high words often passed 
between him and his leader. Walpole, however, knew the 
value of his support, though he was never deceived as to 
his loyalty. " His name is perfidy," he used to say, and 
Hervey wrote of him: 

"For granting Ms heart is as black as Ms hat, 
With no more truth in this than there's sense beneath that."t 

At last, in 1742, came Walpole's fall. The year before 
both Newcastle and Pelham had done battle for him, 
but now, when defeat was certain, they arranged, largely, 
it seems, under Walpole's directions, for the change of 
government and the succession of Wilmington. Although 
Newcastle had been for some time intriguing with 
Carteret and probably with Pulteney, he had no desire 
to have a strong ruler again at the head of affairs. But 
Wilmington was an inoffensive and impotent make- 
shift, and when next year he showed signs of failing in 
health, the two brothers had recourse to their old leader. 
Walpole, who was now Lord Orford, though out of office, 
remained nearly as powerful as ever, and his advice and 
influence with the King was great. 

Pelham, on Wilmington's taking office, had been offered 
the place of Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he had pre- 
ferred to keep to his old post, with the lead of the House 
of Commons. Walpole thought he had made a mistake, for 
he writes to him in July, 1743 : " If you had taken the advice 

* Jennings, ii. 117. 

t H. Walpole, " Letters," i. 209; Macaulay, vi. 25. 



BECOMES PEIME MINISTER 37 

of a fool and been made Chancellor under Lord Wilmington 
tlie whole had dropped into your mouth. Lost opportuni- 
ties are not easily retrieved."* Pelham, however, was made 
First Lord of the Treasury, while Newcastle acquired an 
increased share in the control of the government. Carteret, 
who had become Lord Granville, still remained a potent 
factor in the Cabinet, but with Walpole's aid he also 
was got rid of a year later, and the two brothers then re- 
mained supreme. Newcastle, writing to Lord Chancellor 
Hardwicke on November 10, 1744, says: "By what the 
King said to your lordship and by Lord Granville's looks 
afterwards I should fancy the thing is over; and that they 
will take their resolution this day or to-morrow. Perhaps 
Lord Granville may desire to be President, with a garter. 
I own I do not quite see the necessity of flinging him into 
a rage of opposition, if we could, without it, find means of 
satisfying Lord Orf ord and a certain number of his friends ; 
for without this last we have no ground to stand on, and 
shall, I fear, be obliged to shew in a few months that we 
have not strength to support the King's afiairs though he 
should put them into our hands. My dear Lord, perhaps 
nobody but you can carry us through; and you can."t 
This was the regular Newcastle style. 

The system continued essentially the same as that of 
Walpole. " The fall of an unpopular minister," says 
Gibbon, ' ' was not succeeded according to general expectation 
by a millennium of happiness and virtue: some courtiers 
lost their places, some patriots lost their characters. Lord 
Orford's offences vanished with his power; and after a short 
vibration the Pelham Government was fixed on the old 
basis of the Whig aristocracy." | 

During Walpole's long and placid administration Pelham 
had imbibed the principles of sound finance and had learned 
to appreciate the benefits of peace. He now endeavoured 
to follow in the footsteps of his master, who died early in 
1745. He constructed what was called the Broad Bottom 
administration, to which various sections of the Whigs 

* Coxe, " Pelham," i. 83. f Ihid., i. 187. 

% Gibbon, 20. 



38 PELHAM 

and a few Tories were admitted. The Cabinet was mainly 
made up of dukes, Pelham being the only commoner in it. 
Almost at the start he had to deal with a war with France, 
followed by the defeat of Fontenoy and the Jacobite rising. 
To meet public opinion the ministry was obliged to enlist 
the best supporters available. Among the most active of 
these was William Pitt. More eloquent than any man in 
the House of Commons, he was a highly dangerous opponent. 
He had powerful friends and connections — Lord Cobham, 
the Grenvilles, and Lyttelton — and his inclusion in the 
government was to Pelham a matter of necessity. But 
the King refused, for Pitt's speeches had offended him. 
Pelham again urged it, but the King remained obdurate, 
with Granville behind him. At last Pelham determined to 
kill two birds with one stone. He took his courage in his 
hands and resigned. During two days Granville vainly 
tried to form a ministry. Then Pelham came back; 
Granville was definitely discredited ; and Pitt was admitted 
to a minor post in the government, and a few months 
later was promoted to Pelham's old place of Paymaster- 
General. Matters now ran more smoothly. The Opposi- 
tion almost ceased to exist, for the Tories had to recover 
from the effects of the Kebellion of 1745, while the 
chief Whigs were all on the side of the ministers. In 
1748 the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed. Three 
years later Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Bolingbroke, 
two constant fomenters of trouble, both died. Pelham's 
task became easier, and he occupied himself mainly with 
financial measures for consolidating the National Debt and 
reducing its interest. 

But though the political future was promising, his own 
was not. The early death of his two young sons had 
much shaken him, and his health was far from strong. 
The disputes between the brothers had already nearly 
wrecked the ministry on more than one occasion.* Pelham 
longed for some relaxation from his labours, for Newcastle, 
though generous to him with money, was jealous and 
quarrelled with him almost as much as he had done with 
* Dodington, 264. 




W. Hoare pinx. 



B. Houston sc. 



HENEY PELHAM 



To face page 38 



HIS DEATH 39 

Walpole. The constant work of tte House of Commons 
weighed heavily on him. He tried to retire, but the King 
had a firm trust in him and insisted on his remaining. He 
turned again to his work, but it was not for long. Early 
in 1754 he caught a chill from walking in St. James's 
Park and then standing by an open window. It developed 
into erysipelas and on March 6 he died suddenly, aged 
about sixty, after having led the government for nearly 
eleven years. 

The country was agitated and dismayed. The King 
exclaimed that now he would have no more peace. The 
Whigs especially deplored Pelham's loss. It fell on the 
same day that a new edition of Bolingbroke's works had 
appeared, and Garrick wrote of it: 

" The same sad morn to church and state, 
So for our sins 'twas fixed by fate, 
A double stroke was given ; 
Black as the whirlwind of the North 
St. John's fell genius issued forth, 
And Pelham's fled to heaven."* 

The Tory squires, however, who had not relished his taxes 
nor his reduction of the funds, celebrated him in another 
vein : 

" Lie heavy on him, land, for he 
Laid many a heavy load on thee."t 

Pelham was his brother's heir, but he only left daughters. 
The husband of one of these eventually succeeded by a 
special remainder to Newcastle's title and estates, and from 
her the present duke is descended. Another daughter 
married Lord Sondes, a cousin of Lord Rockingham. 

Pelham was a man of some presence and dignity, of a 
florid, healthy constitution, but " careless of his health, 
most intemperate in eating, and used no exercise." J There 
are good pictures of him by Hoare and by Shackleton, 
showing a broad, pufEy face of a placid and kindly ex- 
pression, not without thought and spirit. He had simple, 
unobtrusive manners, and was singularly generous and 

* H. Walpole, " Letters," ii. 372. f H. Walpole, " George IL," i. 219 
J H. Walpole, " Letters," ii. 374. 

4 



40 PELHAM 

honest. A devoted father and husband, he was happiest 
in his country pursuits, 

" Where in the sweetest solitude . . . 
From courts and senates Pelham finds repose,"* 

though much given to the picquet-table at White's when 
in London. Cautious and mild as a politician, he was 
chiefly anxious to carry on the government with economy 
and peace on the lines of his powerful predecessor. With- 
out much ambition himself, he had had all his life to bear 
with his busy, unstable and importunate brother, though 
he would have been well content to live in quiet could he 
have evaded the trammels of office. But Newcastle pushed 
him on, while George II., who disliked changes, knew when 
he had got a good minister, and insisted on having full value. 

Chesterfield called Pelham " a very inelegant speaker. "| 
Waldegrave says of him: 

" He had acquired the reputation of an able and honest 
minister; had a plain, solid understanding, improved by 
experience in business, as well as by a thorough knowledge 
of the world; and without being an orator, or having the 
finest parts, no man in the House of Commons argued with 
more weight, or was heard with greater attention. He was 
a frugal steward to the public, averse to continental extra- 
vagance and useless subsidies ; preferring a tolerable peace 
to the most successful war; jealous to maintain his personal 
credit and authority; but nowise inattentive to the true 
interest of his country. "J 

Henry Pelham was a sound, though timid, statesman. 
With the tradition of Walpole behind him, the King's 
favour, the loyal support of the whole Whig connection, 
and hardly any opposition to meet, his political lot lay in 
pleasant times. He governed the House of Commons by 
the usual methods of bribery, though he was absolutely 
free from venality himself. Content to pursue an even 
course, anxious to avoid adventures, careful in finance, firm 
in his administration at home and pacific in his policy 

* Thomson's "Seasons," " Summer," 1431. 

t Chesterfield, " Miscellaneous Works," iv. 45. (Charact.) 

j Waldegrave, " Memoirs," 18. 



NEWCASTLE SUCCEEDS 41 

abroad, his period continued the golden days of Whig 
government in the eighteenth century. Had he not been 
thrust into the shade by Walpole and Chatham, his 
sterling merits would have been more widely recognized. 
His real value was most seen when he was gone. 

NEWCASTLE 

Newcastle professed to be shattered by his brother's 
death, but he lost no time in securing his vacant place. 
He writes to Lord Albemarle on March 28, 1754 : 

" I have the greatest loss that man can have, and now 
have no view but to endeavour to pursue his measures, 
serve his friends, and particularly to do everything that 
can best comfort his poor family. The King's charity, 
goodness, and confidence are not to be expressed, and I 
have no comfort so great as that of following my dearest 
brother's example to the best of my power ; to do the King 
the best service and give him the greatest satisfaction. It 
is for that reason that His Majesty has commanded me to 
go to the head of the Treasury, as thinking (and in that the 
King shall not be deceived) that nobody could so punctually 
observe all that has been intended as myself. I shall 
endeavour to make the same friends by doing my best to 
deserve it."* 

This sounded well enough, but in selecting his friends 
Newcastle almost at once made a cardinal error. For 
some reason still not clearly understood he omitted to 
promote the powerful Pitt. For ten years Pitt had re- 
mained in a subordinate though well-paid place, doing hard 
work in the House of Commons and often supporting 
measures of which he did not approve. His abilities were 
pre-eminent and he was well on in age. He felt now that 
his chance had come. Remonstrances with Newcastle were 
in vain. So Pitt threw down the gauntlet and brought the 
great guns of his eloquence to bear on the ministry. In a 
short time he was dismissed from office. A succession of 
salvos then burst upon the wretched Robinson, who had 
* Coxe, " Pelham," ii. 307. 



42 NEWCASTLE 

been put up to lead in the Commons. To withstand these 
attacks Newcastle enlisted the help of Fox, to be Secretary 
of State and to take Kobinson's place. Fox asked who 
would have the management of the members — i.e., the 
distribution of the secret service money. Newcastle said 
he was going to keep that him^self. " My brother, when he 
was at the Treasury, never told anyone what he did with 
the secret service money," said the Duke, " and no more 
will I."* Fox, who was touchy and liked power and money, 
was much dissatisfied, but he undertook the work. In the 
meantime Pitt continued to bombard the ministers, and 
at last Fox resigned and joined him. This combination 
was too much for Newcastle. The French War was going 
badly, and the defeats irritated public opinion. He had 
no good man in the House of Commons. For two and a 
half years he had held on, but he saw that now he must 
compromise or retire — at any rate for a little. He made 
a final effort to separate the two new allies, but he failed, 
and at last, in November, 1756, after a series of querulous 
and feverish manoeuvres, he was constrained to resign, and 
Devonshire and Pitt took over the government. 

But Newcastle's borough influence in the country, his 
parliamentary connection, his alliance with nearly all the 
great Whig families, and his experience of office, had made 
him an almost indispensable friend and a very dangerous 
opponent. The new ministers thus found that they were 
unable to continue without his support. They recognized 
the inevitable and in July, 1751, a treaty was patched up 
between Pitt and Newcastle, Devonshire gladly making way. 

The negotiations which led to this coalition were pro- 
tracted and devious, and on Newcastle's side they were 
often ludicrous. But eventually an arrangement was come 
to. Newcastle was to be First Lord of the Treasury and 
to manage the patronage and the placemen ; Pitt was to be 
Secretary of State and to direct the policy. 

Then, in Lord Macaulay's words, "... out of the chaos 
in which parties had for some time been rising, falling, 
meeting, separating, rose a government as strong at home 
* Macaulay, vi. 59. 



PRIME MINISTER 43 

as that of Pelham, as successful abroad as that of Godolphin. 
. . . Newcastle brought to the coalition a vast mass of 
power, which had descended to him from Walpole and 
Pelham. The public offices, the church, the courts of law, 
the army, the navy, the diplomatic service, swarmed with 
his creatures. The boroughs . . . were represented by his 
nominees. The great Whig families, which, during several 
generations, had been trained in the discipline of party 
warfare, and were accustomed to stand together in a firm 
phalanx, acknowledged him as their captain. Pitt, on the 
other hand, had what Newcastle wanted, an eloquence 
which stirred the passions and charmed the imagination, 
a high reputation for purity, and the confidence and ardent 
love of millions. The partition which the two ministers 
made of the powers of government was singularly happy. 
Each occupied a province for which he was well qualified; 
and neither had any inclination to intrude himself into the 
province of the other. Newcastle took the treasury, the 
civil and ecclesiastical patronage, and the disposal of that 
part of the secret service money which was then employed 
in bribing members of Parliament. Pitt was Secretary of 
State, with the direction of the war and of foreign affairs."* 

The ministry was soon celebrated over the whole globe 
for its military and naval achievements, and if Pitt was 
the directing spirit of victory, Newcastle, for his part, kept 
the House of Commons and the country contented at home. 
These, indeed, were his palmiest days of wire-pulling and 
patronage. Walpole and Pelham were dead, and Pitt cared 
for none of these things. Newcastle was able to surround 
himself with sycophants and clients, to hold daily levees, to 
indite interminable letters, to eat magnificent dinners, and 
to pay his duty to the King and the princesses. Not that 
he neglected the business of state, for in this he was as as- 
siduous as he was in all his occupations. But he loved the 
panoply of power, and he had it now to his heart's content. 

For a few years all went well. Lord Chesterfield, writing 
in May, 1758, says: '' Domestic affairs go just as they did; 
the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt jog on like man and 
* Macaulay, vi. 70. 



44 NEWCASTLE 

wife; that is seldom agreeing, often quarrelling; but by 
mutual interest, upon the whole not parting."* It was 
the calm before the storm. 

During the old King's reign no cloud marred the horizon, 
and the political future of the government looked singularly- 
promising. But when at last he died and the new heir came 
in, the sky rapidly began to lose its brightness. A Scots 
member of the young King's household, Lord Bute, hitherto 
only a courtier, had determined to become a politician. 
When Newcastle went to the palace with the draft of the 
King's speech, the Whig First Lord of the Treasury was 
referred to the Tory Groom of the Stole. He was aston- 
ished, but he did not demur. Shortly afterwards Bute was 
made in rapid succession a privy councillor, a Knight of the 
Garter and a Secretary of State. 

Pitt had seen which way the wind was blowing and did 
not tolerate it for long. When his advice was disregarded 
he spoke out, and then, as the disregard continued and 
Newcastle did not support him, with impetuous contempt 
he resigned. But the Newcastle code of politics was 
different; in it, according to Lord Stanhope, "the next 
best thing to a firm retention of office was the prospect of a 
speedy return to it."| For a year the old duke bore rebuffs 
and disavowals of his policy with the best grace he could 
muster. But at last he found that if he stayed on he would 
have to submit to Bute not only his policy, but also his 
patronage. 

In a letter to Legge early in 1762 he says: " I was this 
day at Court in order to speak to My Lord Bute but he was 
not there. I will endeavour to see him to-morrow and shall 
do my utmost . . . but I am sorry to observe to you that 
the present conjuncture is not the most favourable for a 
recommendation of mine." J To such a state of political 
impotence was the Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister of 
England, reduced. But there were limits even to his 
patience, and when Bute ceased to dictate and merely 
ignored him, he finally steeled his mind to go. In October, 

* Chesterfield, ii. 411. t Stanhope, " Hist.," iv. 385, 386. 

% Original correspondence. 



RESIGNATION AND DEATH 45 

1762, lie resigned, at the age of sixty-nine, after having been 
continually in office, with the exception of a few months in 
1756-7, for forty-five years. He refused to accept any 
pension and went out with some dignity. Nothing became 
him in office so much as his leaving of it. " It moves one 
to compassion," writes a contemporary, " to think of the 
poor old Duke himself. A man once possessed of £25,000 
per annum of landed estate, with £10,000 in emoluments of 
government, now reduced to an estate of scarcely £6,000 per 
annum, and going into retirement (not to say sinking into 
contempt) with not so much as a feather in his cap, and but 
such a circle of friends as he has deprived of their places."* 

Bute succeeded to his place, and proceeded to pile Pelion 
on Ossa. Within a year he had deprived the old minister, 
in company with the Duke of Grafton and Lord Rocking- 
ham, of the three lord-lieutenancies which he had held since 
the days of George I. Newcastle's rage and amazement 
were unbounded, but he bided his time. Twelve months 
later Bute had disappeared; in two years more Grenville, 
his successor, had been dismissed, and in 1765 Newcastle, 
now in his seventy-third year, was able to return to office 
as Lord Privy Seal under Rockingham. But this short 
Whig administration lasted only until 1766, and then Pitt, 
his former rival and colleague, formed a new government 
and Newcastle retired. 

This was the end of Newcastle's political career. He 
still corresponded, intrigued and complained, but he had 
ceased to carry much weight; he was becoming senile, and 
in 1768 he died. 

He left no children, and his dukedom, which had been 
re-created with fresh limitations, descended to his nephew, 
Lord Lincoln. His income, through his political expendi- 
ture, had been reduced by nearly three-quarters, for though 
he had often bribed others, after the custom of his day, 
he had never profited himself, but had lost heavily by his 
tenure of office. 

Newcastle was neither a handsome nor an attractive 
man. There are several pictures of him, but coronets, 
* Ellis, 2nd series, iv. 454. 



46 NEWCASTLE 

robes, wands and inscriptions are more striking features in 
them than looks, expression or figure. Superficial virtues 
he undoubtedly lacked. Waldegrave, writing in 1759, 
describes him at some length : 

"Ambition, fear, and jealousy, are his prevailing 
passions. 

" In the midst of prosperity and apparent happiness, the 
slightest disappointment, or any imaginary evil, will, in a 
moment, make him miserable ; his mind can never be com- 
posed; his spirits are always agitated. Yet this constant 
ferment, which would wear out and destroy any other man, 
is perfectly agreeable to his constitution : he is at the very 
perfection of health, when his fever is at the greatest height. 

" His character is full of inconsistencies; the man would 
be thought very singular who differed as much from the 
rest of the world as he differs from himself. 

"If we consider how many years he has continued in 
the highest employments; that he has acted a very con- 
siderable part amongst the most considerable persons of his 
own time ; that, when his friends have been routed, he has 
still maintained his ground; that he has incurred His 
Majesty's displeasure on various occasions, but has always 
carried his point, and has soon been restored both to favor 
and confidence ; it cannot be denied that he possesses some 
qualities of an able minister. Yet view him in a different 
light, and our veneration will be somewhat abated. Talk 
with him concerning public or private business, of a nice or 
delicate nature, he will be found confused, irresolute, 
continually rambling from the subject, contradicting him- 
self almost every instant. 

" Hear him speak in parliament, his manner is ungrace- 
ful, his language barbarous, his reasoning inconclusive. 
At the same time, he labours through all the confusion of a 
debate without the least distrust of his own abilities ; fights 
boldly in the dark ; never gives up the cause ; nor is he ever 
at a loss either for words or argument. 

" His professions and promises are not to be depended 
on, though, at the time they are made, he often means to 
perform them; but is unwilling to displease any man by a 



CHARACTEEISTICS 47 

plain negative, and frequently does not recollect that he is 
under the same engagements to at least ten competitors. 

" If he cannot be esteemed a steady friend, he has never 
shewn himself a bitter enemy; and his forgiveness of injuries 
proceeds as much from good nature as it does from policy. 

" Pride is not to be numbered amongst his faults; on 
the contrary, he deviates into the opposite extreme, and 
courts popularity with such extravagant eagerness, that he 
frequently descends to an undistinguishing and illiberal 
familiarity. 

" Neither can he be accused of avarice, or of rapacious- 
ness; for though he will give bribes, he is above accepting 
them ; and instead of having enriched himself at the expense 
of his master, or of the public, he has greatly impaired a 
very considerable estate by electioneering, and keeping up 
a good parliamentary interest, which is commonly, though 
perhaps improperly, called the service of the crown. 

" His extraordinary care of his health is a jest even 
amongst his flatterers. As to his jealousy, it could not be 
carried to a higher pitch, if every political friend was a 
favourite mistress."* 

He was a man of marvellous industry. Burke saysr 
" There was nothing I was so much surprised at in the late 
Duke of Newcastle as that immense and almost incredible 
ease with which he was able to despatch such an infinite 
number of letters. "| All of them he seems to have written 
with his own hand, and they are singularly slipshod and 
difiuse. 

Horace Walpole gives a specially venomous account of 
him, in which all his betrayals, all his vices and all his 
failures are set down. " Jealousy," he says, " was the 
great source of all his faults, with a ridiculous fear. His 
houses, gardens, table and equipage swallowed immense 
treasures; the sums he owed were only exceeded by those 
he wasted. He liked business immoderately, yet was only 
always doing it, never did it;" and so on. " His life had 
been a proof that even in a free country great abilities are 

* Waldegrave, 11-14. f Burke, " Corresp.," i. 168. 



48 NEWCASTLE 

not necessary to govern it."* Much of tMs may be 
exaggeration, but there is no doubt that Newcastle was the 
favourite butt of political pamphleteers and cartoonists of 
the day. The tales of his slobbering and bustling, of his 
malapropos remarks, of his flattery, of his tears and fears, 
of his ignorance and folly, are as well known as they are 
numerous. His hurrying, ungainly walk, his disordered 
clothes, his vacant manner, his fulsome embraces, all make 
up a singularly repellent figure. 

" His natural gifts so low, he strives in vain 
To climb a height that dulness can attain. . . . 
Let him but keep his outside show of power 
He'll act with Oxford, Granville, Bath or Gower."f 

From his earliest days he was a politician. At twenty- 
one " he paid a large crowd in the city to halloo for King 
George on Queen Anne's death. "{ He never seems to have 
had any other serious tastes, and his private delights were 
centred in his banquets at Newcastle House and his fruit 
gardens at Claremont, from which, says Walpole, " the 
pineapples are literally sent to Hanover by courier. "§ He 
did, it is true, " affect to be in love " with the Princess Amelia 
after the death of Queen Caroline, but there does not seem 
to have been much more in the affair than a desire to 
increase his political influence — at the expense of Sir 
Robert Walpole. || That he was hospitable, generous and 
indefatigable in assisting his friends is certain. His other 
good qualities are not so prominent. But a man even with 
the material advantages of Newcastle does not hold high 
political office for nearly fifty years and become twice Prime 
Minister without possessing considerable abilities. Perhaps 
his strongest asset was knowledge, that knowledge of 
politics, of people, of public business and of precedents, 
which cannot be acquired by intuition or by study, but 
only from long experience at the centre of affairs. By such 
talents and by his influence in Parliament he gradually made 

* H. Walpole, " George III," iii. 265. 

t Hanbury Williams, ii. 140, 142. J Coxe, " Pelham." 

§ H. Walpole, " Letters," ii. 123. 

11 H. Walpole, " Letters," i. 135 ; Hervey, ii. 544. 




&'. Kneller pinx. 



THOMAS PELHAM-HOLLES 

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 



To face page 48 



THE END OF AN EPOCH 49 

himself a necessary factor in the government, or made the 
Kmg and his colleagues think him so. When he went the 
myth exploded, but while he remained on the political stage 
his collaboration was always sought for. His experience, 
his rank, his riches and his control of the House of Com- 
mons, had served to keep him in power; and power, with all 
its concomitants of patronage, business and consideration, 
was his only ambition. To acquire or to retain these he 
would run any risks and descend to any depths. 

" Nunc piece, nunc pretio, nunc vi, nunc morte suprema 
Permutel; dominos et cedat in altera jura." 

When place was to be pitted against perfidy there was 
never any hesitation in his mind. Walpole and Chatham 
both recognized this, and appraised Newcastle accordingly; 
but his influence and his utility had to be reckoned with' 
and they were both sufficiently sensible men to value 
compromise. 

Newcastle shares with Palmerston the distinction of 
having held some political office for a longer period than 
any other Prime Minister. That and perhaps the negative 
yu:tue of omitting to enrich himself at the public expense 
m days when he could easily have done so without much 
commenthave ensured him a place in history. 

With his death an epoch maybe said to have passed away. 
He had heard of Cromwell from his father, and could 
himself recollect King William and Queen Anne. He had 
met the great men of the Revolution, and had known 
Marlborough, Godolphin and Sunderland, Addison, Swift 
and Pope. He could remember Louis XIV. and the Old 
Pretender as definite dangers, and Walpole and Chatham 
as rising politicians. With him the permanent rule of the 
old Whigs really finished, and some of his successors who 
were born m his lifetime were to see a fresh system in which 
dukes and white staves, close constituencies and port wine, 
gradually became of rather less account in shaping the 
destinies of England. 



CHAPTER III 
THE DUKES 

DEVONSHIRE, GRAFTON AND PORTLAND 

The eighteenth, century was the heyday of dukes in 
England. Before the Restoration they were few in number, 
to be counted on a single hand. But Charles 11. , perhaps 
from his recollections of the French Court, where they 
abounded, started making them at a rapid rate. William 
III., Anne and George I. followed suit, and by 1721, the 
year in which Walpole became Prime Minister, there were 
as many as thirty-two dukes, considerably more than exist 
to-day. For forty years they had been created at an 
average of one every fifteen months. It is true that more 
than half of them have now disappeared — Albemarle, 
Ancaster, Bolton, Bridge water, Buckingham, Chandos, 
Cleveland, Dorset, Kent, Kingston, Monmouth, Montague, 
Ormonde, Schomberg, Shrewsbury, Wharton, and others 
that have been revived since, are all instances; and this 
is not including the foreign duchesses such as Kendal 
and Portsmouth, who had achieved a more dubious 
eminence. Thus there were quite sufficient members 
of the highest rank in the peerage to monopolize most of 
the principal offices in the Cabinet or at Court, and as most 
of the dukes were wealthy and influential, while many 
were desirous of place, they formed an appreciable element 
in the politics of the time. " In those days," says Lord 
Rosebery, " an industrious duke could have almost what 
he chose. . . . Pelham's administration contained five 
dukes; he himself was the only commoner in it, and he 
was a duke's brother. . . . The two Secretaries of State 
were both dukes."* Their position was indeed so important, 

* Rosebery, " Chatham," 264. 
50 



DUCAL MINISTEIES 51 

their quality so revered, that their mere name was of very 
considerable value to any Cabinet. The only Prime 
Minister who ever succeeded in leading a government, first 
as a Whig and then as a Tory, was a duke. In twenty-six 
years, from 1757 to 1783, out of nine Prime Ministers four 
were dukes. In the last hundred years only one has filled 
that place. Of the four eighteenth- century dukes the first, 
Newcastle, was something quite sui generis. His origin 
was different to that of the other three, Devonshire, Grafton, 
and Portland, whose paternal grandfathers had all been 
dukes before them. His had been only a country gentle- 
man. His rank, wealth and borough influence helped him, 
but he was also a genuine working politician. Out of the 
fifty-four years of his political life, reckoning from his 
coming of age, he was forty-six years in some sort of 
office. Devonshire, Grafton and Portland between them 
barely averaged one-quarter of this stupendous record, 
and not one of them ever approached Newcastle in zeal 
and industry. 

These three dukes, then, may fairly be regarded as be- 
longing to a class apart. Not great men themselves, they 
were often used as respectable and awe-inspiring covers for 
other ministers. The elder Pitt, a shrewd judge, always 
selected them for this dignified position. They were good 
rallying-points for their party, and as a rule they were more 
acceptable to the Sovereign than comparatively novi 
homines like Pitt and Fox. But though they lacked genius, 
they were men of character and fair ability, who gave quite 
as much to the State as they got from it. Free from 
personal ambition and little attracted by office, they were 
more independent and detached than the regular politician, 
and in their own way they set up a standard. 

I.— DEVONSHIRE 

William Cavendish, first styled Marquess of Hartington 
and afterwards fourth Duke of Devonshire, was born in 
1720 — both the month and place of his birth are un- 
certain. He was the eldest son of William, the third duke, 



52 DEVONSHIRE 

and Catherine, only daughter and heiress of John Hoskins, 
of Oxted, in Surrey. When he was nine years old his father 
succeeded to the dukedom, so that he was brought up in 
the most brilliant and the soundest traditions of the Whigs. 

The Cavendishes, who dated from the days of the early 
Tudors, were at the head of the Revolution families. The 
first duke had presided at that meeting of magnates which 
determined to bring over William of Orange, and to the 
Protestant succession his family had ever adhered. His 
son had married a daughter of the patriot Lord Russell, 
and so further cemented his anti-Jacobite connection. 
The third duke was content to shine with a subdued light, 
but he was a Whig of the purest water and of much weight 
in the country. According to Waldegrave, he " had great 
credit with the Whigs, being a man of strict honor, true 
courage, and unafiected affability. He was sincere, 
humane, and generous; plain in his manners, negligent in 
his dress ; had sense, learning and modesty, with solid rather 
than showy parts ; and was of a family which had eminently 
distinguished itself in the cause of liberty. 

" Many would have followed him, had he given proper 
encouragement ; particularly those who professed the purest 
Whiggism, and were neither quite satisfied with our 
ministers, nor quite determined to oppose them. But he 
did not affect to be a party leader; besides, he had an 
esteem and friendship for Mr. Pelham, though he had not 
the most favorable opinion of the Duke of Newcastle."* 
He was among Sir Robert Walpole's oldest friends, had 
supported him consistently, and had served under him 
as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland from 1737 to 1744. His 
youngest daughter, Rachel, soon after his death married 
Walpole's nephew. 

The young Lord Hartington was educated, so far as is 
known, at home, and then travelled for some time on the 
Continent. He had " many of the good qualities of his father, 
but seemed less averse to business and better qualified 
for a court, "f He came early into politics. At the age of 
twenty-one he was elected for Derbyshire, and remained a 
* Waldegrave, 26. f Ihid., 85, 86. 



PKIME MINISTEE 53 

member of the House of Commons for ten years. During 
this time tie was closely concerned with all the events 
following on the fall of the Walpole administration, though 
he held no official position. In March, 1748, he married 
Lady Charlotte Boyle, daughter and heiress of Richard, 
Earl of Burlington, who brought him a large accession of 
English and Irish property. In that year Lady Mary 
Montagu writes of him: " I do not know any man so fitted 
to make a wife happy."* 

About this time his father, who had little love for office, 
gave up his place of Lord Steward, with his seat in the 
Cabinet, and retired to Chatsworth. In 1751 Hartington 
was called up to the House of Lords in one of his father's 
baronies, and shortly afterwards he accepted the place 
of Master of the Horse and was sworn a privy councillor. 
He was a friend of Henry Fox and was on good terms with 
Pitt, but was not otherwise very active in Parliament. 

In 1754 Pelham died. He was succeeded as Prime 
Minister by his brother Newcastle. " A faint offer of the 
Treasury," says Lord Rosebery, " was made to the Duke 
of Devonshire, which he wisely declined. "f But New- 
castle was anxious to have a Cavendish in his Cabinet, and 
early in the next year Hartington, who had just lost his 
young wife, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. 
Eight months later his father died, and he became Duke of 
Devonshire. 

In the mxcantime Newcastle had succeeded, by means of 
the curious intrigues and manoeuvres which distinguished 
him, in estranging first Pitt and then Fox. The latter in 
October, 1756, resigned his office of Secretary of State, 
and soon afterwards the ministry began to crumble. 
Foreign affairs were going badly, and the credit of the 
government had sunk. Pitt, whom the King had ap- 
proached as Newcastle's principal opponent, now recom- 
mended the appointment of Devonshire as First Lord of the 
Treasury, mainly on account of his high reputation, the 
royal favour he enjoyed and the number of his friends. 

* Montagu, ii. 160. 

t Eosebery, "Chatham," 339; H. Walpole, " George II.," i. 381. 



54 DEVONSHIRE 

Pitt himself was to be Secretary of State, with the chief 
power in the Cabinet. To much of this the Duke was 
averse, but eventually it was forced on him on the grounds 
of public policy, and he kissed hands on November 4. 
" Yet," says Waldegrave, " he did not accept till His 
Majesty had given his word that, in case he disliked his 
employment, he should be at full liberty to resign at the 
end of the approaching session of Parliament."* 

Once the question was settled, Devonshire approached 
his task with zeal and sincerity. He writes to Legge, the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, on November 6, 1756 : 

" Dear Mr. Legge, 

" I am just come from Kensington where I have 
acquainted His Majesty that Mr. Pitt acquiesces in the 
Southern department and submits Lord Holdernesse's con- 
tinuance to the King by which means I flatter myself that 
this Country may at least gain a breathing time, pray God 
some means may be found out to save her. I received your 
Letter and have done everything in my power to comply 
with what you desire, as yet I have not had the success I 
could wish but you may depend upon me that nothing 
shall be wanting on my part to show my regard to you. 
I send this by a flying Pacquet and hope you will be so good 
as to come up directly, that no time may be lost. I am to 
go tomorrow morning early with Lord Temple to Hayes 
in order to settle matters farther and propose being back 
time enough for Court. My best respects to Mrs. Legge 
and believe me to be, 
" Dear Sr, 

" Yr most faithfull humble servt, 

" Devonshire."! 

His ministry, however, was unsuccessful. Newcastle 
commanded the principal borough influence in the Com- 
mons, and wanted to come back. Pitt had few friends 
and was as yet a man of little connection, except with the 
ubiquitous Grenvilles. The unfortunate trial of Admiral 
Byng damaged the government, and the King loathed Lord 
* Waldegrave, 86. f Original correspondence. 



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To face page 54 



RESIGNATION 55 

Temple, who was Pitt's brother-in-law and one of its 
principal members. Devonshire was uneasy in his place 
and was not particularly fond of his colleagues. The King 
knew this: " The Duke of Devonshire," he said, ''has acted 
by me in the handsomest manner, and is in a very disagree- 
able situation entirely on my account. I have promised 
that he shall be at full liberty at the end of the session, and 
I must keep my word."* 

His Majesty accordingly began to look about for a new 
minister and first pitched upon Lord Waldegrave, one of 
his own household. The plan came to nothing, though 
Devonshire was privy to it, being very ready to leave office. 
Various solutions were sought, and at last, in July, 1757, 
an arrangement was come to between Newcastle and Pitt, 
and an administration was formed under their leadership. 
Devonshire, who had been made a Knight of the Garter 
and appointed Lord Chamberlain on the death of the old 
Duke of Grafton, was then able to retire from his ungrateful 
place at the Treasury. " Pitt and Leicester House," says 
Waldegrave, " for a time paid great court to him; but when 
they perceived that he had a will of his own, in some 
material articles; that he would neither totally abandon 
his old master, nor renounce his former friends, all cordiality 
and confidence was immediately at an end. . . . Though 
he had been disgusted by faction and perplexed with 
difficulties, he lost no reputation ; for great things had never 
been expected from him as a minister ; and in the ordinary 
business of his office he had shown great punctuality and 
diligence, and no want of capacity, "f 

He continued at Court until the accession of George III., 
when new counsels began to prevail. To Bute and the 
Princess of Wales all the Whigs, and especially Devonshire, 
were extremely distasteful. Little time was lost in making 
the change felt. In 1762 Bute became Prime Minister, 
and he quickly found the opportunity he desired. . . . 
*' The Duke of Devonshire," says Macaulay, "was especially 
singled out as the victim by whose fate the magnates of 
England were to take warning. His wealth, rank and 

* Waldegrave, 100. f lUd., 140-1. 

5 



56 DEVONSHIRE 

influence, Ms stainless private character, and tlie constant 
attachment of his family to the House of Hanover, did not 
secure him from gross personal indignity. It was known 
that he disapproved of the course which the government 
had taken, and it was accordingly determined to humble 
the Prince of the Whigs, as he had been nicknamed by the 
Princess Mother. He went to the Palace to pay his duty. 
' Tell him,' said the King to a page, ' that I will not see 
him.' The page hesitated. ' Go to him,' said the King, 
' and tell him those very words.' The message was de- 
livered. The Duke tore off his gold key, and went away 
boiling with anger. His relations who were in office in- 
stantly resigned. A few days later, the King called for the 
list of Privy Councillors, and with his own hand struck out 
the Duke's name."* 

The Duke at once resigned his lord lieutenancy of 
Derbyshire. He writes to the Secretary of State, Lord 
Halifax, on December 30, 1762 : 

" The removal of the Duke of Newcastle and Lord 
Rockingham from the Lieutenancies of their respective 
counties, appearing to me a clear indication that His 
Majesty does not think fit that those who have incurred his 
displeasure should continue his Lord Lieutenants, and, as I 
have the misfortune to come within that description. His 
Majesty having been advised to show me the strongest 
marks of his displeasure that could possibly be shown to 
any subject, I look upon it as a respect due to my sovereign, 
and I owe it to myself, not to continue any longer in such 
an office. I must therefore beg the favour of your Lordship 
to carry to the King my resignation of the Lord Lieutenancy 
and Gustos Rotulorum of the Gounty of Derby. 

*' I am, etc., 

" DEVONSHmE."f 

This was the end of his political life. Early in 1764 he 
became ill; in August he set ofi to Spa, suffering from 
dropsy, and on October 2 he died there at the age of forty- 

* Macaulay, vi. 235; Jesse, "George III.," i. 144. 
t Albemarle, i. 156. 



CHARACTERISTICS ' 57 

four. He was the shortest lived of all the Prime Ministers, 
and his death was universally regarded as a real calamity. 
He left several sons, from one of whom the present duke 
is descended, and a daughter, who married the Duke of 
Portland, afterwards Prime Minister. Several of his pos- 
terity have attained high distinction in the public service; 
and among the dukes those of Devonshire have alone 
enjoyed the honour of all receiving the Garter. 

In his young days Devonshire was one of the best-looking 
men in London. With a long narrow face, fresh complexion, 
tall and well set up, he was a singularly attractive figure. 

A man of great independence and fearlessness of 
character, he was honest, cool and resolute. Office he never 
sought; it sought him. Indeed, his name was sufiicient 
to form, though not perhaps to maintain, a government. 
Of his private life too little is known. He says that he did 
not read the newspapers, though he went a good deal to 
the play. He was a friend of Garrick's and when Lord 
Chamberlain used to invoke his aid as to his duties in 
regard to the stage, which he treated with considerable 
humour. Dr. Johnson had said of the third duke tha.t, " If 
he had promised you an acorn and none had grown that 
year in his woods, he would not have contented himself 
with such an excuse; he would have sent to Denmark for 
it — so unconditional was he in his word ; so high as to the 
point of honour."* His son was, " like his father, naturally 
averse to public business, but, like his father also, was 
highly esteemed by all parties for probity and truth. "f 

Devonshire, indeed, was a man too good for his age. 
Pitt did not appeal to him as a man, nor Fox as a politician. 
The former's views were too ideal — he wanted power; the 
latter's were too material — he wanted place. Devonshire 
wanted neither ; he wanted peace and a quiet life ; but he 
was too loyal to his country and his party to avoid what 
he held to be his duty. And though he kept to his motto, 
Cavendo tutus, he was a man of a high spirit, and like his 
ancestor, who had defied a Stuart King, he was well able 
to hold his own with one from Hanover. 

* Boswell, iii. 186. f Stanhope, " Hist.," iv. 127. 



58 GEAFTON 



II.— GEAFTON 

Augustus Henry Fitzroy, afterwards third Duke of 
Grafton, was born on October 9, 1735, the second but elder 
surviving son of Lord Augustus Fitzroy by Elizabeth, 
daughter of Colonel William Crosby, an Irishman of good 
family, who had been Governor of New York. His father, 
the third son of the second duke, was a naval officer of some 
distinction, who had been M.P. for Thetford, but he fell 
a victim to malaria at the siege of Carthagena when only 
twenty-five years old. A few years later, by the death of 
an uncle, young Fitzroy, at the age of twelve, became heir 
to the dukedom. This, he says, " turned my brother 
and myself over to the care of my grandfather."* With 
his prospects his upbringing underwent a material change. 

Lord Euston, as he was now called, went to live at 
Wakefield, and was sent to school first at Hackney and 
then at Westminster. As a boy he met the famous William 
Pitt at Lord Cobham's seat at Stowe, and conceived a strong 
admiration for him. At sixteen, in right of his birth, he 
took his degree as Master of Arts at Peterhouse, Cambridge, 
and then started of! to make the grand tour. He was 
accompanied by a Monsieur Alleon, a Genevan, whom he 
describes in his memoirs as " a real gentleman, and a man 
of great honour, with much knowledge of the world; but 
who was more fitted to form the polite man than to assist 
or encourage any progress in literary pursuits ! . . . In 
this tour we stretched down as far as Naples, and passing 
through the South of France, making a second stay at 
Geneva, we visited Switzerland, a very small part of 
Germany, and turned through Holland, back by Flanders 
to Paris, with the intention of making a longer abode in 
that city than we were afterwards enabled to accomplish. 
Our stay at Paris and Fontainebleau, however, was not 
less than five months; and I had, thro' the means of Lord 
Albemarle, our ambassador, in whose family I was in- 
timate, the opportunity of seeing the best company at 

* Grafton, 3. 



THE SECOND DUKE 59 

Paris, which I cultivated much to my satisfaction."* He 
read history, the principles of government, and " the sound 
system of Mr. Locke," and was by no means lacking in 
industry. Returning to England in 1754, just after 
Pelham's death, he found the various parties of political 
men " ambitiously struggling to advance their own power 
and that of their friends, and appearing to be less attentive 
to the state of the nation. "f 

In 1756 he came of age, and married his first wife, the 
Hon. Anne Liddell, daughter of the first Lord Ravensworth. 
He was then elected member for Bury St. Edmunds, and 
appointed a Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. 
A few months later his grandfather died from a fall out 
hunting, and Lord Euston succeeded to the title and 
estates, and was soon afterwards made lord lieutenant of 
Suffolk. 

The old duke had been a remarkable character. The 
grandson of Charles II. and of his minister Lord Arlington, 
he had shown the firmest loyalty to the House of Hanover, 
and had been a lifelong friend of George II. " He was," 
says Waldegrave, " a few days older than the King; had 
been Lord Chamberlain during the whole reign, and had a 
particular manner of talking to his master on all subjects, 
and of touching upon the most tender points, which no 
other person ever ventured to imitate. 

" He usually turned politics into ridicule ; had never 
applied himself to business; and as to books, was totally 
illiterate; yet from long observation, and great natural 
sagacity, he became the ablest courtier of his time; had 
the most perfect knowledge both of King and ministers; 
and had more opportunities than any man of doing good or 
bad offices. 

" He was a great teazer; had an established right of saying 
whatever he pleased ; and by a most intimate acquaintance 
with all the Duke of Newcastle's evasions, had acquired 
... an ascendant over him. . . ."% 

The young duke thus started well. " When I waited on 
His Majesty at Kensington, and was admitted into the 

* Grafton, 3-4=. f ^&*^m ^- X Waldegrave, 114. 



60 GRAFTON 

closet, in order to deliver the ensigns of the Order of the 
Garter of my late grandfather, the King, after a few 
common questions, said, and with tears evidently rising in 
his eyes, ' Duke of Grafton, I always honoured and loved 
your grandfather, and lament his loss. I wish you may be 
like him; I hear you are a very good boy/ "* 

Grafton went down to the country, and for the next few 
years took no particular part in politics, devoting himself 
to his estates, hunting and the turf. Early in 1761 he 
again made a journey to France and Italy for his wife's 
health, but his relations with her began to be strained, and 
soon after their return the two were separated. 

George III. was now King, Pitt and Newcastle had 
retired, and Bute had come into power. Grafton was a good 
Whig and came up to do battle. He made his first speech 
in the House of Lords against the peace with France. " It 
was, he says, too declamatory, but " it had one good effect 
at least, for it called up the Earl of Bute."| It seems also 
to have succeeded in annoying the minister, for, in company 
with Newcastle and Eockingham, Grafton was deprived 
of his lord lieutenancy. This thoroughly identified him 
with his party. He saw Pitt often and lived a great deal 
with Lord Temple. He visited Wilkes in prison, and gave 
considerable attention to politics, though he still spent 
much of the year in the country. But when in London he 
was active and keen. Horace Walpole writes of him about 
this time : " He is appearing in a new light, and by the 
figure he makes will soon be at the head of the Opposition 
if it continues.'' J 

Grafton was concerned in several of the negotiations of 
the Whigs to bring Pitt into power, but finding this im- 
possible, he eventually consented in July, 1765, to take 
office as Secretary of State in Lord Rockingham's ministry. 
He was then just thirty years old. In this place he remained 
nine months, resigning the seals after a second attempt to 
bring in Pitt had failed. On this occasion he seems to have 
acted with spirit and loyalty. 

The Rockingham administration only lasted until July, 
* Grafton, 10-11. j ^&*^- 24-25. % H. Walpole, " Letters," iv. 52. 




/. Hoppner pinx. 



AUGUSTUS FITZROY 

3rd duke of GRAFTON 



To face page 60 



PRIME MINISTER 61 

1766. Pitt was then called upon to replace it. In making 
up his Cabinet he determined that Grafton should take 
the Treasury, while he reserved the post of Privy Seal and 
Prime Minister for himself. Grafton states that he himself 
was very much against this arrangement, but was com- 
pelled to agree. Writing forty years later, he says: " Mr. 
Pitt's plan was Utopian, and I will venture to add that he 
lived too much out of the world to have a right knowledge 
of mankind."'* He also describes his astonishment at Pitt's 
taking an earldom, of which he was ignorant until two days 
before ministers kissed hands. 

The government which now assumed office was a 
heterogeneous mosaic of adherents of the King, of Chatham 
and of the official Whigs. At first it hung together, though 
with some difficulty. Like its predecessor, it was regarded 
as " light smnmer wear." But soon Chatham, its leader, 
became ill and retired to Bath, where he refused to deal 
with his work or to hold communication with anyone. 
Indeed, he was verging on insanity. Grafton writes of 
him: "From this time he became invisible, even to the 
Lord Chancellor and myself; and he desired to be allowed 
to attend solely to his health, until he found himself to be 
equal to any business. Here, in fact, was the end of his 
administration."! By March, 1767, the chief conduct of 
affairs had developed upon Grafton. 

In a reign of six years six Prime Ministers had now suc- 
ceeded each other with a celerity unknown in England 
before or since. Bread was short, the American War was 
brewing, the Wilkes controversy was raging. The ministers 
were discredited, for they were as inexperienced in business 
as they were unpractised in debate. Their new chief had 
inherited some of his royal ancestor's less attractive 
characteristics, and he gave them full rein. Separated from 
his wife, he had formed a connection with Miss Nancy 
Parsons, a lady known for her easy virtue and faded 
charms, who was the heroine of the lines : 

" From fourteen to forty our provident Nan 
Has devoted herself to the study of man." 

* Grafton, 91. f Ihid., 124, 125. 



62 GBAFTON 

Her admirer did not scruple to entertain her publicly at 
Ms house in London, or to lead her out of the Opera in the 
presence of the Queen. Even in those easy days this was 
thought rather daring behaviour for a Prime Minister, and 
particularly for one whose government was not prospering. 
His hounds at Wakefield and his horses at Newmarket 
claimed as much of his time as his mistress, and public 
interests suffered accordingly. Walpole in 1768 compared 
him to "an apprentice, thinking the world should be post- 
poned to a whore and a horse race;"* while Grenville says 
in a letter: " The account of the Cabinet Council meeting 
being put off, first for a match at Newmarket, and 
secondly because the Duke of Grafton had company 
in his house, exhibits a lively picture of the present 
administration. '"t 

But Grafton saw matters in a very different light. He 
thought himself ill-treated by Chatham, and was always 
talking of resigning. The position of the government was 
as pitiable as it was desperate. To remedy it, efforts were 
made to induce some of the Whigs to come in, but with 
little success. Lord North, however, consented in 1767 to 
become Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Grafton was genuinely anxious to get rid of his office, 
and he only kept it from a sense of duty. His numerous 
letters to Lady Chatham begging for interviews with her 
lord — which he never got — illustrate his position at this 
time. He writes to her from Newmarket on October 5, 
1768: 

" Madam, 

" It would give me the most cordial satisfaction to 
be able to have the honor of seeing your ladyship for one 
quarter of an hour, at any day, or hour, after Saturday next, 
that you shall be pleased to command me to wait on you at 
Hayes. It is so long since Lord Chatham's health has 
allowed his lordship to see me, that struggling in a most 
arduous career, where friendship to him could alone bring 

* H. Walpole, " Letters," v. 107. 
■j" Grenville, iv. 176. 



BESIGNATION OF CHATHAM 63 

me from a life much more pleasing to my own mind, 
think, I am entitled from this circumstance to claim the 
favor I beg of your ladyship, in order to disburthen my 
mind on some particular subjects; and that your ladyship 
may know, at least, that my whole conduct has not, nor 
shall have, any other bias, than that which brought me 
forward into my present situation. I shall be in London on 
Saturday, and hope to find the favor of a line from your 
ladyship, to whom 

" I have the honor to be, with the truest esteem 
and the most profound respect, 

" Madam, etc., etc., 
"Countess op Chatham. " Grafton."* 

At last Chatham definitely resigned. Of this Grafton 
says: " I shall ever consider Lord Chatham's long illness, 
together with his resignation, as the most unhappy event 
that could have befallen our political state. Without 
entering into many other consequences at that time, which 
called for his assistance, I must think that the separation 
from America might have been avoided; for in the following 
Spring Lord Chatham was sufficiently recovered to have 
given his effectual support to Lords Camden and Granby 
and Genl. Conway, with myself, who were overruled in our 
best endeavours to include the article of teas with the other 
duties intended to be repealed."! 

Grafton stayed on in office, and early in 1769 the Letters 
of Junius began to appear, which pilloried him perhaps 
beyond his deserts. But their effect was enormous, and 
without the name of Chatham behind him he could not 
long support their attacks, Camden, the Lord Chancellor, 
was opposing him; he was outvoted in the Cabinet, and 
Chatham, who was on the road to recovery, showed a 
hostile disposition. This combination made Grafton's 
position quite untenable, and early in 1770 he determined 
to resign. The King approached Lord North, and after 
some trouble, succeeded in persuading him to accept the 
seals. He then wrote to Grafton: 

* Grafton, 218. f Ihid., 225. 



64 GEAFTON 

'' Duke of Grafton, 

" In consequence of what you said last night, I have 
convinced Lord North of the necessity of my consenting 
to your acquainting your friends tomorrow of your in- 
tention of retiring, among whom I hope you will see the 
Duke of Newcastle.* n j? 

" Queen's House, 

''January 28, 1770. 

" 23 m. pt. 8 p.m." 

Grafton had in the meantime somewhat mended his 
private affairs, for he had got rid of Miss Parsons in 1769. 
Shortly afterwards he married as his second wife Elizabeth, 
daughter of Sir Kichard Wrottesley and niece of the Duke 
of Bedford. On this occasion the King gave him the 
Garter. He had also been installed as Chancellor of the 
University of Cambridge, an appointment which gave him 
much pleasure, for he was still something of a student. 
He was, however, not yet free from public cares. Within 
a twelvemonth he accepted the place of Privy Seal in Lord 
North's ministry, though he made the rather remarkable 
reservation that he should not be summoned to the Cabinet. 
For some years he remained in support of the Tory govern- 
ment, but in 1775 a definite disagreement on the policy 
adopted towards the American colonies caused him again 
to resign. His letters and interviews with the King on 
this occasion showed an honest and patriotic desire for 
conciliation and a bold spirit of truth. 

He now returned definitely to the Kockingham Whigs, 
and resumed his intimacy with Camden and Fox. Much 
of his time, however, he passed at Euston or Wakefield, 
occupied with his country pursuits, the militia and his 
health, about which he had become very fastidious. After 
Chatham's death in 1778 two attempts were made by Lord 
North to bring him back into the ministry, but Grafton 
adhered to his old friends and still vehemently opposed 
the American War. 

In 1782 North at last resigned, and Rockingham 

* Grafton, 250. 



EETIEEMENT AND CHAEACTER 65 

formed his government. Grafton now again accepted 
the Privy Seal, which he retained through Shelburne's 
administration, though with little content. He com- 
plained of being insufficiently consulted, and was not at all 
sorry to go when Portland came in the year after. A few 
months later William Pitt became Prime Minister, and 
Grafton was offered his old place for the third time. But 
on this occasion he declined, and when the question was 
renewed the next year it again came to nothing. 

He now gradually retired from politics, though he 
occasionally spoke in the House of Lords. His real in- 
terests lay in the country, and during his later life in a 
rather unexpected study of theology, which eventually 
determined him to become a Unitarian. He was also a 
collector of rare books, many of which he read. Surrounded 
by a large and happy family, he became in his old age a 
contented and venerable figure, his youthful errors and 
vagaries forgotten, his high, position and patriarchal 
respectability alone remembered. He survived until 1811, 
dying at the age of seventy-seven. 

Grafton's appearance as a young man was not prepossess- 
ing, for he had the saturnine countenance of Charles II. 
But though his face was forbidding and he was not tall, he 
had a graceful carriage, an elegant figure and a great air of 
breeding. In later years his white hair and pronounced 
profile gave him a handsome and dignified aspect, and in 
his fine picture by Hoppner he looks the type of a benev- 
olent aristocrat. As a speaker, though his action and 
delivery were good, his matter was not equal to his 
manner. 

Lord Stanhope says that " he was upright and dis- 
interested in his public conduct, sincere and zealous in his 
friendships, and by no means wanting in powers either of 
business or debate. Unhappily, however, as his career 
proceeded, experience showed that these excellent qualities 
were dashed and alloyed with others of an opposite tenor. 
He was wanting in application, and when pressed by 
difficulties in his office, instead of seeking to overcome 
them, would rather speak of resigning it. . . . Still, 



66 POETLAND 

however, in spite of every disadvantage and defect, he con- 
tinued through a long life much respected by all who knew 
him for the uprightness and integrity of his public motives/'* 
Grafton was a fair example of a Stuart : well-intentioned, 
loyal and honourable, not without capacity and taste, but 
bored by business, lacking in industry and determination, 
and overmuch given to sport and pleasure. His high rank 
and early promise brought him great place, but want of 
endurance and the misfortunes of the times made him fail 
in it. A competent colleague in ordinary circumstances, 
he was called upon to act as a leader in days of misfortune, 
and for this he had neither the character, the energy nor 
the courage. 

III.— POETLAND 

William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, first styled Marquess 
of Titchfield and afterwards third Duke of Portland, was 
born on April 14, 1738, the eldest son of the second duke 
by Lady Margaret Harley, daughter and heiress of Edward, 
second Earl of Oxford, Prior's " noble, lovely little Peggy.'" 
His mother had brought in with the blood of the Cavendish 
and Holies families part of their vast possessions, including 
Welbeck Abbey, and this alliance had strengthened the 
strong Whig sentiments that had been maintained by the 
Bentincks since their arrival in England with King 
William III. 

Lord Titchfield was educated at Eton and Christ Church, 
Oxford, and soon after he came of age was elected M.P. 
for Weobly, in Herefordshire. He only remained a few 
years in the House of Commons, for early in 1762 he suc- 
ceeded his father. At this time he is said to have been 
one of the wealthiest and best-educated men in Britain. 
There was at first some question of his marrying Lady 
Waldegrave, Sir Eobert Walpole's granddaughter, who was 
famous for her beauty, but eventually in 1766 he took as 
his wife Lady Dorothy Cavendish, the only daughter of 
the fourth Duke of Devonshire, who had been Prime 
Minister ten years previously. At the age of twenty-eight 
* Stanhope, " Hist.," v. 311, 312. 



IN OPPOSITION 67 

he became Lord Chamberlain in Rockingham's short 
ministry, but in a year he was out of office. He was a 
vehement Whig, and for the next sixteen years he devoted 
his time and money to fighting the Tories and the King's 
party, by which his fortune suffered not a little. Horace 
Walpole writes in 1767: " In the counties they are all mad 
about elections. The Duke of Portland, they say, carried 
£30,000 to Carlisle, and it is all gone already." (This was 
his borough war with Sir James Lowther.) And again in 
1768: " Lord Rockingham, the Duke of Portland and the 
Cavendishes agree in thinking we have no enemies but 
Lord Bute and Dyson."* (" Mungo " Dyson was M.P. for 
Yarmouth, and one of Bute's creatures. Lord Albemarle 
says of him: " He was one of those parasitical persons who 
serve Governments a little and disgrace them much. By 
birth a tailor, by education a Dissenter, and from interest 
or vanity in his earlier years a Republican."!) 

Portland at this time lived at Burlington House, which 
belonged to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Devonshire. 
With Rockingham, Fox and the principal Whigs he was 
intimate, but according to Walpole he was not known to the 
mass of his party nor particularly well off. " He has lived 
in ducal dudgeon with half a dozen toad eaters secluded 
from mankind behind the ramparts of Burlington wall, and 
overwhelmed by debts without a visible expense of two 
thousand pounds a year. "J 

Throughout the American War, however, he remained an 
active and indefatigable opponent of the government's 
policy. Burke, writing to Rockingham in 1773, says that 
he spoke extremely well: " If his Grace gave his excellent 
understanding a direction that way, I am sure he would 
make a public speaker of very great weight and authority. "§ 

The aftermath of the American War at last proved too 
strong for Lord North, and the King was compelled again to 
admit the hated Whigs to his councils. Rockingham 
became Prime Minister, and Portland, as one of his chief 

* H. Walpole, "Letters," v. 68, 106. t Albemarle i. 306. 

% H. Walpole, " Letters," viii. 253. 
§ Burke, " Corresp.," i. 417, 418. 



68 POETLAND 

supporters, was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. His 
financial affairs had recently improved, and lie was soon 
to inherit an additional £12,000 a year by the death of his I 
mother. He was now given the opportunity of showing 
what he could do in a high public position. He acquitted 
himself with success, for though he only remained a few 
months in Dublin his administration was firm and humane, 
and his despatches manifest breadth of view and a liberal 
spirit. In July, however, Rockingham died, and Shelburne 
was called upon to take his place. Shelburne, as an old 
follower of Chatham, was regarded as heterodox by most of 
the Whigs, who had little confidence in him. Accordingly 
there was a grand split in the party, and Portland, Fox, 
Burke and the Cavendishes retired from the government. 
Their attitude was that they and not the new Prime 
Minister were the real Simon Pures. For the moment they 
did not prevail, but early in the next year the new adminis- 
tration came to grief, and after an interval of over a month, 
caused by the King's obstinacy and party intrigues, the 
so-called Coalition ministry was formed by Fox and North, 
with Portland as its chief. Fox had the directing voice, 
though not to the extent that was commonly believed, 
the idea that the Duke was " a block to hang Whigs on "* 
being much exaggerated. Indeed, he showed considerable 
tenacity of his principles. The day before finally accepting 
the new ministry the King, who was himself one of the most 
stubborn men in Europe, said to North: " Well, so the 
Duke of Portland is firm V " Yes, Sir," said North. 
" Well, then, if you will not do the business I will take 
him."t It was one of the earliest victories over George IIL's 
attempts at direct rule, and might have meant much. 

Portland was undoubtedly a convinced and honest Whig, 
and he was no hankerer after office. Yet his alliance with 
North, the leader of the Tories, is not easy to fathom. 
The influence of Fox and an inveterate distrust of Shelburne 
were probably at the bottom of it. The Coalition ministry, 
however, was radically unsound. It included spirits 

* H. Walpole, " Letters," viii. 351. 

t H. Walpole, " Last Journals," ii. 612. 



PRIME MINISTER 69 

entirely opposed to one another, while the King from the 
very first was against it. For eight months it existed on 
sufferance, its principal record being the India Bill. Then 
the King seized his chance and dismissed it at a moment's 
notice. On December 17 it fell, execrated by all parties, and 
its ruin secured the undisputed dominion of the Crown for 
the next fifty years. William Pitt, who had been Shel- 
burne's Chancellor of the Exchequer, became Prime Minister. 

Portland now embarked upon a fresh period of opposi- 
tion, in some ways rather disillusioned. But he had other 
occupations besides politics. He interested himself in art, 
and gave much of his time to increasing and arranging the 
magnificent collections at Welbeck, in what Mrs. Delany 
once called " a glare of grandeur." The miniatures, the 
manuscripts, the " bales of pictures," and the vast library, 
provided work for a lifetime. Walpole called Welbeck in 
those days a " devastation."* In 1787 the duke acquired 
from Sir William Hamilton the priceless relic of Roman 
glass known as the Barberini or Portland vase, which is 
now in the British Museum. But though he ranked as a 
Maecenas he continued to lead the Whigs and to maintain 
what unity he could within his party, though this gradually 
became increasingly difficult. 

In 1792 the extreme line taken by Fox on the French 
Revolution alienated many of the older Whigs. Pitt 
thereupon approached the more moderate section, which 
was led by Portland, and offered them places in the 
government. The negotiation came to nothing, mainly 
owing to Portland's loyalty to Fox, with whose new political 
opinions, however, he strongly disagreed. But later on 
fresh overtures were made, and eventually in 1794, just 
after his wife's death, Portland agreed to join Pitt's 
ministry, and accepted the Home Office. At the same 
time he received the Garter, which had already been offered 
to him. Two years earlier he had been elected Chancellor 
of the University of Oxford. There is not any doubt of 
the high-minded and conscientious spirit which animated 
him throughout these negotiations; the mass of his 
* H. Walpole, " Letters," iii. 32. 



70 PORTLAND 

party inclined to compromise, and he risked losing the 
support of his principal followers from his hesitation to 
leave Fox. 

During the next six years he was in control of the domestic 
affairs of Great Britain and Ireland, and it was un- 
doubtedly at this time that his best work was done. He 
dealt with the many thorny questions that then arose, 
including the Rebellion in 1798, with a sufficient share 
of sense, strength and discrimination. But his almost 
autocratic position at the head of a great administrative 
department of nearly unlimited powers gradually hardened 
his ideas to a more conservative temper, and, with revolu- 
tion in the air and colleagues who favoured a repressive 
policy, he became less and less inclined for the reforming 
programme of his old party. 

In 1795 his eldest son had married a daughter of General 
Scott, and five years later Canning married her sister. 
This strengthened his connection with the Tories and still 
more identified him with Pitt's policy. On the change 
of government in 1801 Portland, who held the anti- 
Catholic view, adhered to Addington, and accepted the 
post of Lord President of the Council in his Cabinet. But 
he took a much less active part in affairs, and did not show 
his former energy. Malmesbury, a close friend, describing 
a conversation with him in 1803, said: "The Duke in- 
variably the same in the opinions he gives in private, and 
ever observing the same invariable silence in council; his 
language and professions of political faith to me — and he 
gave it most fully and without reserve — was the wisest and 
the most judicious possible, but it squares so little with what 
the Government do that it is manifest he has no weight.'"* 

During Pitt's second administration Portland remained 
on in the Cabinet without a post, and on Pitt's death he 
resigned with his colleagues. But in 1807, on the fall of 
Grenville's short ministry, he was again called upon to 
form a government. Largely at the instigation of Lord 
Malmesbury, he had taken the very unusual step of writing 
to the King, while Lord Grenville was still in office, and 
* Malmesbury, iv. 214. 




/. Reynold) 'pinx. 



J. Muffihy sc. 



william cavendish-bentinck 
3rd duke of POKTLAND 



To face page 70 



HIS SECOND MINISTRY 71 

suggesting to His Majesty a course of action for defeating 
tlie designs of the Whigs in regard to Catholic relief. 
Persons, he said, " will be found able to carry on your 
Majesty's business with talents and abilities equal to those 
of your present ministers. If your Majesty should suppose 
that in the forming of such an Administration, I can ofl:er 
your Majesty any services, I am devoted to your Majesty's 
commands; but while I say this I feel conscious that my 
time of life, my infirmities, and my want of abilities, are 
not calculated for so high a trust."* 

His offer was accepted, though it was twenty-four years 
since he had been at the head of a government, and it had 
then been the Whigs whom he led, while now it was the 
Tories. He was almost in his seventieth year, failing 
rapidly in strength and past much work. But, although he 
was fully conscious of his limitations, he behaved with 
courage and steadfastness. " My fears," he said, " are 
not that the attempt to perform this duty will shorten my 
life, but that I shall neither bodily nor mentally perform 
it as I ought." His forecast was correct. He was unequal 
to his task. He carried on for two and a half years, during 
much of which time his administration was without a con- 
trolling spirit. Perceval, Liverpool, Canning and Castle- 
reagh each directed their own departments much as they 
pleased and with considerable lack of unison. The 
responsibilities and worries of office, added to continual 
ill-health, were too much for the old duke. In August, 
1809, while driving to Bulstrode, he had a paralytic stroke, 
from which he never recovered. f Shortly afterwards he 
resigned his post, and in October he retired to Welbeck, 
to die a few weeks later. For many months he had been 
suffering severe pain which he had borne with great pluck 
and little complaint. But he had far outlived his powers 
and the duties of his office were too intricate and onerous 
for him to perform. 

His immediate progeny was not undistinguished. His 
younger son. Lord William Bentinck, became Governor- 
General of India, and his grandson. Lord George, was the 

* Malmesbury, iv. 362. f Jesse, " George III.," iii. 533. 

6 



72 POETLAND 

leader of the Protectionists against Sir Eobert Peel. The 
present duke is his great-grandson. 

In appearance Portland was distinctly a handsome man. 
He was tall, with a broad brow, strong profile, clear com- 
plexion and an expression of dignity, benevolence and 
sincerity. He was no speaker: "He possessed in an 
eminent degree the talent of dead silence."* 

Portland has been variously described : " A convenient 
cipher.'" " A cool, sagacious, determined oligarch." 
" His character was unimpeached, but he had never at- 
tempted to show any parliamentary abilities." " Entirely 
unfit for his situation both in character and talents." Such 
were the diverse opinions of his contemporaries. But on 
one point there is agreement : he was honest, patriotic and 
never self-seeking, striving to do what he held to be his 
duty to the best of his abilities. That these abilities were 
limited is sufficiently clear. His decision was halting, his 
habits procrastinating, and his manners too retired for a 
successful party leader. But he never sacrificed the 
calls of his office to those of his own affairs, his pleasure 
or his health. The strongest of party men, he yet was 
willing to put aside his earliest traditions and his oldest 
friendships for what he conceived to be the good of his 
country. 

His career was remarkable. He had, in the words of 
Lord Fitzmaurice, " the singular distinction of being twice 
Prime Minister of England, first as the leader of the 
narrowest section of the Whig party, and afterwards 
as chief of the most Tory of Tory administrations. "f Such 
turns does the wheel of Fortune reserve for those who never 
sacrifice to her. 

With Portland it may be said that the days of the ducal 
Prime Ministers were done, for Wellington was formed of a 
different clay and cast in another mould. But the three 
here mentioned all came of a sound and enduring stock, 
with their roots deep down in the land. In the eighteenth 
century there were fourteen Prime Ministers. Four only 
* Bell, 227. t Fitzmaurice, ii. 225. 



THE DUKES' WORK 73 

have left a male line extending to the present day. Three 
were dukes, while the fourth, Shelburne, was so nearly of 
the ducal quality that he had the promise, and his grand- 
son had the refusal, of the coveted golden coronet. Not 
striking exponents of science, laws or learning, they were a 
good pattern of the aristocrat who cared little for office, but 
much for duty. Their work contributed some stability 
to the State and their patriotism an example to the public. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE PITTS 

CHATHAM AND PITT 

The family of Pitt is undoubtedly the most distinguished 
in the political annals of England. Modest in origin and 
little aided by wealth or connection, it gave the country 
two Prime Ministers of its own name; it nominated two 
more, the hereditary chiefs of the houses of Cavendish and 
Fitzroy; it introduced to power a third pair, its relations 
the Grenvilles; and it left as a legacy behind it the lesser 
luminaries of Addington, Jenkinson and Robinson. For 
two generations it dominated the fortunes of England. 
It doubled the House of Lords and controlled half the 
House of Commons. Its policy acquired much of the 
British Empire and withstood the assaults of her fiercest 
foes. It initiated parliamentary reform, religious tolera- 
tion and modern finance. Under it the Tories rose to 
their highest pitch and maintained their longest lease of 
power. Before it the Whigs sank into oblivion for sixty 
years. 

Yet two only of the Pitts attained distinction. Taken 
together their lives covered less than a century, and they 
have left no posterity to transmit their name, their titles 
or their estates. 

I.— CHATHAM. 

William Pitt the elder, afterwards Earl of Chatham, was 
born in London on November 15, 1708. He was the 
second son of Robert Pitt by Harriott, daughter of the 
Hon. Edward Villiers, of the Grandison family, who had 
taken the surname of his wife, Catharine Fitzgerald. This 
Robert was the son of Thomas, better known as Governor 

n 



EAELY LIFE 75 

Pitt, wlio had made a fortune in the East Indies, where he 
acquired the great Pitt diamond. He had then come home, 
bought up some rotten boroughs, and had settled at 
Boconnoc in Cornwall. He was a man of ungovernable 
temper, and to his hot blood, inflamed by the suns of India, 
may probably be ascribed the gout and the insanity which 
pursued his descendants.* 

Although his father was a rich man, Kobert Pitt was not 
blessed with much wealth, and his son William when sent 
to Eton was placed on the Foundation. At school he gave 
considerable promise, though his health even then was poor. 
Henry Fox, George Lyttelton, Richard and George 
Grenville and Henry Fielding, were among his contem- 
poraries. He went on to Trinity College, Oxford, in 1726, 
but was compelled to come down by illness, and he finished 
his education at Utrecht. In 1731 he joined the 
1st Dragoon Guards, and for some years did regular 
garrison duty in England, steeping himself in the literature 
and history of his profession. In 1732-1733 he made a 
tour abroad, visiting France and Switzerland and learning 
all he could during his stay, for at this time he was a wide 
and constant observer. 

The colonel of his regiment was Richard Temple, 
Viscount Cobham, a distinguished soldier, and owner of the 
palatial house of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, whither he 
invited the young cornet as his guest. His Grenville and 
Lyttelton nephews were the Eton friends of Pitt, whose 
elder brother, Thomas, had married one of their sisters. 
Though all Whigs, they were inveterate opponents of Sir 
Robert Walpole, then Prime Minister, and this connection 
first turned Pitt towards politics. Pitt had, indeed, some 
leanings that way, for Lord Stanhope, his uncle by marriage, 
had risen to be Secretary of State in the reign of George I. 
An opportunity of entering Parliament occurred in 1735, 
and Pitt was nominated by his elder brother for the pocket 
borough of Old Sarum. 

For a poor man the House of Commons was rather a 
venture, but he entered on his new career with energy 
* Rosebery, "Chatham," 25, 508. 



76 CHATHAM 

and soon showed Ms mettle. On the Prince of Wales^s 
marriage lie made a speech which so much annoyed the 
ministers that he was deprived of his commission. This 
drove him into the arms of Leicester House, and as a con- 
solation he was given an appointment at the Court of 
his Royal Highness as Groom of the Bedchamber. Under 
the guidance of Pulteney, the Pitts, Grenvilles and 
Lyttelton now formed a band known as the Boy Patriots, 
which bitterly and continually assailed the Prime Minister. 
Pitt rapidly rose to be its leader, and his remarkable oratory 
and his extraordinary command of language put him in the 
forefront of the Opposition. 

In 1742 Walpole fell and was succeeded by Wilmington. 
A year later Henry Pelham came into power, though 
Walpole remained until his death the real directing spirit. 
The Grenvilles now began to get into office, but Pitt did not 
succeed equally well, for his previous attitude had 
offended the King. But he was a factor to be reckoned 
with in the House of Commons, and the Pelhams did their 
best to retain his support. In 1744 the old Duchess of 
Marlborough left him a legacy of £10,000 for his 
" patriotism," by which she meant his onslaughts on her 
favourite enemy Walpole. She also bequeathed him one 
of the Hampden manors in Buckinghamshire, and further 
secured for him the possible reversion of the great Sunder- 
land estates. These windfalls made a difference in his 
financial prospects, which had so far been very scanty, and 
his conduct underwent a change. Hitherto he had always 
attacked the so-called Hanoverian system, by which 
the German dominions of the Crown received what was 
thought unduly high consideration in the policy of England. 
Now, however, he showed his desire to come to terms with 
the King. In this he met with difficulties, for George II. 
was obstinate and had a good memory. But the Pelhams 
knew that Pitt might be a danger, and at last they were 
obliged to force him on the King. To achieve this object 
they even went so far as to resign for a couple of days, and 
so eventually succeeded in getting him admitted to office — 
though only in the humble capacity of Vice-Treasurer of 



MINOR OFFICE 77 

Ireland. This was in Marcli, 1746. Two months later he 
was promoted to be Paymaster-General and sworn a privy 
councillor. The King was so annoyed, it is said, that he 
shed tears as Pitt knelt before him. 

For nearly eight years Pitt now supported the govern- 
ment, a powerful speaker and a constant help to his party. 
Newcastle he did not like, but with Henry Pelham, the 
Prime Minister, he was friendly. He had followed his 
example in refusing to take any of the customary but illicit 
profits of the Pay Office, and by so doing he had acquired 
wide popularity in the country. Pelham wrote of him in 
1750: " I think him the most able and useful man we have 
among us, truly honourable and strictly honest. He is as 
firm a friend to us as we can wish for, and a more useful one 
does not exist."* 

Since taking office Pitt had broken off his intimacy at 
Leicester House, and in March, 1751, the Prince of Wales 
died. A new figure had then appeared upon the scene. 
This was Lord Bute, a Scotsman and a Tory, who was 
soon to exploit his influence with the Princess Dowager and 
with the young heir to the throne. 

Three years later came the death of Pelham. His 
brother Newcastle at once seized on his place, and after 
some obscure and discreditable intrigues Pitt was jockeyed 
out of the promotion he had fairly earned, for by his merits 
and his value to the government he had deserved a high 
if not the highest post in the Cabinet. But he was away 
ill at Bath, and les absents ont toujours tort. 

Pitt was deeply offended. He talked of withdrawing 
from politics altogether, and for a time he remained in 
seclusion. But the pause was brief. Suddenly it was 
announced that he was to marry Lady Hester Grenville, the 
sister of his old friends Lord Temple and George Grenville. 
His energy revived. He returned to London and instantly 
fell upon the government — impiger, iracundus, inex- 
orabilis, acer. His friends resigned, and Newcastle began 
to tremble. There was but one reply. Pitt was dismissed 
from his place. His eloquence redoubled and his irony 
* Coxe, " Pelham/' ii. 370. 



78 CHATHAM 

was so trencliant, his invective so tremendous, that he 
rapidly succeeded in routing the ministers. Their affairs 
abroad were not prospering, and divisions at home spelt 
disaster. First Fox resigned and then Newcastle; and 
at last the King was obliged to call in Pitt's aid to deal 
with the urgent question of the war with France. After 
much negotiation a fresh government was formed in 1756, 
under the Duke of Devonshire as First Lord of the Treasury, 
Pitt becoming Secretary of State, with the principal power. 
" My Lord," he said to the duke, " I am sure that I can save 
this country, and that nobody else can.''* 

For four months the new ministry lasted, but the in- 
fluence of Newcastle was still predominant in the Commons, 
and most of the Whig lords followed him. Devonshire 
could not continue. Then came further negotiations, 
lasting this time for eleven weeks, and finally in the spring 
of 1757 a combined government was formed, with Newcastle 
at the Treasury and Pitt in charge of the war and of Foreign 
Affairs. " I used the Duke of Newcastle's majority," he 
used to say afterwards, " to carry on the public business."t 
This was a sound and effective alliance. Newcastle 
looked after the men, Pitt contrived the measures. Pitt's 
policy was vigorous, swift and comprehensive, while his 
conversion to the King's views was complete. Every- 
thing he proposed was done, and everything he did was 
right. 

" No more they make a fiddle-faddle 

About a Hessian horse or saddle. 

No more of continental measures, 

No more of wasting British treasures. 

Ten millions and a vote of credit, 

'Tis right. He can't be wrong who did it."J 

This was the period of Pitt's glory. The next four years 
were signalized by some of the most brilliant victories at 
sea and on land, and by some of the most splendid colonial 
acquisitions in the history of Great Britain. For these Pitt 
was primarily responsible, and his fame in Europe rose to 
the highest pitch. He was regarded as the greatest 

* Macaulay, vi. 68. f Lecky, ii. 463. % Macaulay, vi. 73. 



SECEETARY OF STATE 79 

minister that England had ever known. The most cele- 
brated men living joined in his praises. Frederick the 
Great, writing to him in 1761, says: 

" Tout le cours de votre ministere n'a ete qu'un en- 
chainement d'actions nobles et genereuses, et les ames que 
le ciel a fait de cette trempe ne se dementent pas: c'est 
en consequence de ces sentiments, que toute TEurope 
admire en vous, et dont j'ai eu plus d'une occasion de me 
louer, que je suis avec autant de confiance que d'estime, 
Monsieur, 

"Votre tr^s affectione ami 

" Feederic."* 

" England has been a long time in labour,'* said the same 
prince, " but she has at last brought forth a man.^f 
In the same year Voltaire thus addresses him: 

" Au Chateau de Fernay, 
" Pees de Geneve, 
"Monsieur, ^ _ "l9Juillet,mi. 

" While you weight the interets of england and 
f ranee, yr great mind may at one time reconcile Corneille 
with Shakespear. Yr name at the head of Subscribers 
shall be the greatest honour the letters can receive, 'tis 
worthy of the greatest ministers to protect the greatest 
writers. I dare not ask the name of the King; but I am 
assuming enough, to desire earnestly so great a favour. 
Je suis, avec un respect infini pour votre personne et pour 
vos grandes actions, Monsieur, 

" Votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur, 

" Voltaire 

" {Gentilhome ord. de la chambre du roy)"% 

But this apotheosis was not to last for ever. In 1760 
King George II. died. His grandson succeeded and the 
whole system of affairs altered. First and foremost the 
Whigs were to be dismissed. Bute, a disciple of Bolingbroke 

* Chatliain, ii. 111. f Jesse, " Etonians," i. 105. 

% Chatham, ii, 131. 



80 CHATHAM 

and the ami intime of the Princess Dowager, was put into 
the ministry. With the King behind him, he soon became 
all-powerful. Intrigues began against the policy of Pitt, 
which did not always please his colleagues. He was out- 
voted in the Cabinet, and in 1761, on the question of the 
Spanish War, he resigned with his brother-in-law Temple. 
He accepted no honours for himself, but his wife received a 
peerage and a pension. A few months later Newcastle fol- 
lowed him into opposition, and Bute became Prime Minister. 

There is no doubt that Pitt, popular as he was in the 
country, had been difficult and overbearing with his 
colleagues and pompous and uncongenial to the King. 
Lord Waldegrave, writing of him about this time, thus sets 
out his qualities: 

'* Mr. Pitt," he says, " has the finest genius improved 
by study and all the ornamental part of classical learning. 
. . . Hehasapeculiar clearness and facility of expression; 
and has an eye as significant as his words. He is not 
always a fair or conclusive reasoner, but commands the 
passions with sovereign authority; and to inflame or 
captivate a popular assembly is a consummate orator. He 
has courage of every sort, cool or impetuous, active or 
deliberate. . . . 

" He is imperious, violent and implacable; impatient 
even of the slightest contradiction; and, under the mask of 
patriotism, has the despotic spirit of a tyrant. 

" However, though his political sins are black and 
dangerous, his private character is irreproachable; he is 
incapable of a treacherous or ungenerous action; and in the 
common offices of life is justly esteemed a man of veracity 
and a man of honour. 

" He mixes little iu company, confining his society to a 
small junto of his relations, with a few obsequious friends, 
who consult him as an oracle, admire his superior under- 
standing, and never presume to have an opinion of their 
own. ^ 

Bute stayed in power only a year, and was then suc- 
ceeded fijcst by George Grenville, with whom Pitt had now 
* Waldegrave, 15, 16. 



PRIME MINISTER 81 

quarrelled, and next by Rockingham. In tlie meanwhile 
endeavours had been made to bring back Pitt into the 
government, but he had declined to accept office except on 
his own terms, which meant the complete restoration of the 
Whigs. This the King refused, and matters remained as 
they were. In 1766, however, a compromise was arrived 
at, and Pitt was again sent for. He was ill and beset by 
obstacles, for several of his friends stood out, but at last he 
succeeded in patching up a makeshift administration of 
" patriots, courtiers. King's friends and republicans,^'* 
some of whom hardly knew each other by sight. Grafton 
received the Treasury, Shelburne became one of the 
Secretaries of State, and Pitt as Prime Minister took the 
Privy Seal. At the same time he was raised to the peerage 
as Earl of Chatham, and received a pension for three lives 
of £3,000 a year. 

This was the turning point of his fortunes. His title 
and his pension at once deprived him of much of his 
popularity, while his bad health, which had been intermittent 
for years, now became permanent. " There is still a little 
twilight of popularity remaining round the great peer,'' 
writes Burke to Rockingham in August, 1766, " but it fades 
away every moment."! 

His ministry had hardly been constituted before Chatham 
hurried off to Bath, where, says Walpole, " they stood up 
all the time he was in the rooms,'' J His illness increased, 
a dreadful melancholia which bordered on insanity super- 
vened, and from the beginning of 1767 he took no further 
share in public business. 

Grafton was left to control affairs, and with the most 
disastrous results. In the autumn of 1768 Shelburne, who 
had fallen out with Grafton, left the ministry, and shortly 
afterwards Chatham followed him. A year later, however, 
his health began to improve. He returned to Parliament, 
and allied himself with Rockingham. Then he turned upon 
Grafton, and Grafton soon resigned. But in the meantime 
the King had found another minister who would suit him 

* Burke, " Works," i. 171. f 1^^^., " Correspondence," i. 107. 
X H. Walpole, " Letters," iv. 503. 



82 CHATHAM 

better than any lie had yet had — one who would not dictate 
to him, and who yet could manage the House of Commons. 
This was Lord North; and for the rest of Chatham's life 
Lord North remained Prime Minister. 

Throughout the long years of the disputes with the 
American colonies Chatham opposed the arbitrary 
measures of the Tory government and supported the cause 
of liberty. "It is not repealing a piece of parchment," 
he said, "that can restore America; you must repeal 
her fears and her resentments."* But circumstances were 
against him. His health remained wretched, and much 
of his prestige was gone. He was no longer the Great 
Commoner of earlier days. George Grenville and the old 
Duke of Newcastle, his former colleagues, had died, while 
Shelburne, his principal supporter, was distrusted. Thus 
his name and fame far exceeded his power. Occasionally 
recourse was had to him as to a Delphic oracle, but as a 
politician he was almost forgotten. He lived mostly at 
Hayes, a house which he had bought near London, and at 
Burton Pynsent, an estate in Somersetshire which had been 
left him by an admirer. His attendances in Parliament 
were rare. When he came up the ministers shivered. When 
he drove away they breathed again. 

Early in 1778 North, who was in serious difficulties, re- 
commended the King to ask Chatham to form an adminis- 
tration. The King refused. He wrote to North on March 
15: "I declare in the strongest and most solemn manner 
that though I do not object to your addressing yourself to 
Lord Chatham, yet that you must acquaint him that I shall 
never address myself to him but through you; and on a 
clear explanation that he is to step forth to support an 
Administration wherein you are First Lord of the Treasury; 
and that I cannot consent to have any conversation with 
him till the ministry is formed."! 

This, of course, would not suit Chatham, and North 
stayed on. The end of the great man was near. On 
April 7 a motion was made in the House of Lords to petition 
the Crown to withdraw its fleets and armies from the 

* " Nat. Biog.," xlv. 362. f Jesse, " George III.," ii. 202. 



HIS APPEARANCE 83 

revolted provinces of North America. Chatliam came 
down to oppose it. The effort was too much for his 
strength and brought on a fit during his speech. He was 
carried home insensible and a month later he died. He was 
in his seventieth year. His past glories were then recalled. 
His debts were paid, his loss was mourned, and he was 
given a public funeral in Westminster Abbey, with perhaps 
the highest honours ever accorded to a British statesman. 

He left two sons : John, who succeeded him in the title, 
and William, afterwards Prime Minister. Neither of them 
had any issue. His daughter, Lady Hester, married her 
cousin. Lord Stanhope. 

In appearance Chatham was tall, slight and erect. His 
carriage and manner were dignified, if somewhat theatrical, 
his countenance grim and even repellent. Shelburne says 
that he had " the eye of a hawk, a little head and a long 
aquiline nose." * This was his principal feature, and it used 
to be remarked at Court that " when he bowed the tip of 
his long nose could be seen between his legs."t He was 
" very well bred, with all the manners of the vieille cour, 
with a degree of pedantry in his conversation.'''* " He had 
manners and address,"' said Chesterfield; " but one might 
discern through them too great a consciousness of his own 
superior talents. He was a most agreeable and lively 
companion in social life, and had such a versatility of wit 
that he could adapt it to all sorts of conversation."' J 

Chatham was a statesman of the highest order for con- 
ception, design and execution. A thorough imperialist, 
he was yet a sound Whig. One of the earliest advocates of 
parliamentary reform, he stigmatized the system of 
borough representation as " the rotten part of our con- 
stitution,"§ and the King accordingly called him " a 
trumpet of sedition. "|| But in finance and the detail of 
business he was ill-equipped. His style in writing was 
turgid and often verbose, though he was an ardent 
admirer of that of Bolingbroke.H In the King's closet he 

* Fitzmaurice, i. 77. f Albemarle, ii. 82. 

X Chesterfield, " Works " (Characters), iv. 64. § May, i. 333. 

II North, i. 261, ^ Jesse, " Etomans," i. 112, 



84 CHATHAM 

was obsequious, but in the Cabinet he was absolute. It is 
said that he even wrote out the naval orders for the 
fleet, and that the First Lord of the Admiralty had to sign 
them with the writing covered up. He used to put on 
full-dress to go down to his office, and his under-secretaries 
were never allowed to sit in his presence. 

On one occasion, when confined to his bed by the gout, 
he sent a message to the Master General of the Ordnance, 
Sir Charles Frederick, to attend him immediately. " The 
battering-train from the Tower," he told him, " must be 
at Portsmouth by to-morrow morning at seven o'clock." 
The Master General attempted to explain to him that it 
was impossible. " At your peril, sir," said the great 
minister, " let it be done; and let an express be sent to me 
from every stage till the train arrives." By seven o'clock 
the train was at Portsmouth.* 

As a colleague he was dictatorial and taciturn, often 
sententious and obscure. He was an actor, he was 
affected, he loved display and he was to some extent an 
advertiser. But these minor defects were far outbalanced 
by his loyalty, his sincerity and his amazing talents. As 
an orator he was undoubtedly one of the first in ancient 
or modern times, a true rival of Demosthenes. He had 
read little in later life, and, like Walpole, he made mistakes 
of fact in his speeches, but their brilliancy and power easily 
outshone such faults. His best efforts were spontaneous. 
Few fragments of them remain, but what does will bear 
repetition. Speaking on liberty, he said: " Magna Charta 
— the Petition of Right — the Bill of Rights — form the 
Bible of the English Constitution. Had some of the 
King's unhappy predecessors trusted less to the commen- 
tary of their advisers and been better read in the text itself, 
the glorious Revolution might have remained only possible 
in theory, and their fate would not now have stood upon 
record, a formidable example to all their successors. "t And 
again: " The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance 
to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail — its roof 
may shake — the wind may blow through it — the storm 
* Sewa^rd, ii. 364, f Jennings, X30. 



HIS OKATORY 85 

may enter — the rain may enter — ^but the King of England 
cannot enter ! — all his force dare not cross the threshold 
of the ruined tenement/'* 

In a famous speech on the American War, he said: " If 
I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a 
foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay 
down my arms — never ! never ! never !''f 

The grand manner and the noble gestures that accom- 
panied these sonorous phrases immensely enhanced their 
effect. 

Chatham's mental activity when he was in good health 
was enormous. He was inspired by ambition, patriotism 
and a burning love of liberty. To foreigners these qualities 
often appeared dangerous and overweening. The Due de 
Choiseul, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, writing 
to his ambassador in London at the time of the formation 
of the 1766 ministry, says : " Nous ne pouvons com- 
prendre ici quel a ete le dessein de My Lord Chatham en 
quittant la Chambre des Communes. II nous paroissoit 
que toute sa force consistoit dans sa continuation dans 
cette chambre, et il pourroit bien se trouver comme 
Sampson apr^s qu'on lui eut coupe les cheveux. Ce que 
nous avons a craindre c'est que cet homme altier et ambi- 
tieux, ayant perdu la consideration populaire, ne veuille se 
relever de sa perte par des exploits guerriers et des pro jets 
de conquetes qui puisse lui procurer de la reputation. . . . 
My Lord Chatham a pris une charge trop forte d'etre 
le Gouverneur de tout le monde et le Protecteur de 
tous.^'t 

Profuse in expenditure and often in debt, he was a 
religious man, a kind father and a good husband, but 
he had few friends and fewer followers. " At the time 
of his decease," says Macaulay, " he had not in both 
Houses of Parliament ten personal adherents. Half 
the public men of the age had been estranged from him by 
his errors and the other half by the exertions which he had 
made to repair his errors. His last speech had been an 
attack at once on the policy pursued by the Government 
* Jennings, 130. f Brougham, i. 38-4:2. $ Fitzmaurice, i. 411. 



86 CHATHAM 

and on the policy recommended by the Opposition. But 
death at once restored him to his old place in the affection 
of his country."* 

Walpole and Chatham were perhaps the two most 
notable ministers that England has ever had. They were 
both Whigs, but Whigs of a very different complexion. 
Dr. Johnson used to say that Walpole was a minister given 
by the King to the people, while Chatham was a minister 
given by the people to the King. Both started from 
a similar class, though Walpole had a longer and perhaps 
a more equable descent. Neither had much to help them 
in the way of birth, fortune or connection. Both were 
Etonians and King's Scholars, a singular compliment even 
for Eton. Then came divergence. One started early in 
politics and married young. The other started late and 
married later. It was the fable of the hare and the tor- 
toise. One was always healthy and easy-going. The 
other was always ailing and nervous. In their political 
career, both were ambitious and both monopolized power, 
but one devoted himself to commerce and finance, the 
other to victories and colonies. The first, the man with 
the tranquil temperament, maintained his country in peace 
for its longest known period. The second, of transcendent 
talents, conducted her in short and hectic administrations 
through her most successful wars. Both accepted earl- 
doms, both attained the full span of life, and both died 
comparatively poor. But the steady man left England 
still prosperous from the effects of his beneficent rule, 
while the genius survived to see it struggling with defeat 
and disaster, and sank to his grave disappointed and 
almost in despair. The cool stability of Walpole has 
bequeathed to posterity a more lasting legacy, the restless 
fire of Chatham an imperishable name — 

" Clarum et venerabile nomen . . . quod nostrse proderat urbi." 

" Eecorded honours," said Junius, " shall gather round 
his monument and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric 
and will support the laurels that adorn it."t 

* Macaulay, vii. 278. f Junius, ii. 161. 




Ji. Brompton pinx. 



R. Sherwin sc. 



"WILLIAM PITT 

EAEL OF CHATHAM 



To face page S6 



EARLY LIFE 87 



II.— PITT 



William Pitt the younger was born at Hayes on May 28, 
1759. He was the second son of William Pitt, afterwards 
Earl of Chatham, and of Lady Hester Grenville, daughter 
of Richard Grenville and the Countess Temple. His 
mother was created a baroness in 1761. At the time of his 
birth his father as Secretary of State was leading the 
British government, and was perhaps the most famous 
man in Europe. 

Like his father, William Pitt had very poor health as a 
child. For this reason he was educated at home until he 
was fifteen, when he was sent to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. 
There he took his degree in 1776 . Lord Chatham had taken 
great pains to guide his son's studies into the most profitable 
direction, which in his opinion was oratory. His principal 
method was to let him first read through a passage from 
some Latin or Greek author, and then translate it aloud 
into the best English that he could muster. In this manner 
Pitt early acquired that rapid copia verborum which is so 
useful to the speaker. Never given to games, he was in- 
dustrious in his studies — Thucydides, Hume, Locke and 
Adam Smith were his favourite prose authors, but beyond 
his own the only modern language with which he had any 
acquaintance was French, and of this he knew very little. 
His classical attainments, however, were considerable. 

In 1778 Lord Chatham died, and his younger son found 
himself left with only a limited income. He had deter- 
mined to go to the Bar, and he was accordingly called at 
Lincoln's Inn in 1780. For a short time he went the 
Western Circuit, but he had always been deeply interested 
in politics, and he looked for an opportunity of entering 
Parliament. After a request to Lord Rockingham and 
an attempt at Cambridge, both unsuccessful, he was 
offered by Sir James Lowther the close borough of Appleby, 
for which he was elected in January, 1781. He attached 
himself to Lord Shelburne, his father's old follower and 
friend, and stepped at once into the arena. Burke, on 



88 PITT 

hearing his first speech, said: " It is not a chip of the old 
block, it is the old block itself."* 

Early in 1782 Lord Eockingham came into office, from 
which the official Whigs had been excluded for sixteen 
years. He offered Pitt a minor post in the government, 
which was declined, Pitt being determined to accept 
nothing less than Cabinet rank. Three months later Lord 
Shelbuxne himself became Prime Minister, and without 
hesitation he made Pitt his Chancellor of the Exchequer at 
the age of twenty-three. But Shelburne was unpopular, 
and had only a small party to support him. The King was 
a doubtful ally. Fox and North, with the preponderance 
of the Whig and Tory connections, were banded against the 
ministry, and in such circumstances it could hardly survive 
for long. In February 1783 it fell. On this occasion Pitt 
delivered what was regarded as the finest speech ever made 
by so young a man, and the King, anxious to keep the 
power in his own hands, sent for him and asked him to form 
a government. But Pitt was wary. He saw that the 
ground was not yet firm enough under him, and he decided 
to wait. Accordingly the Coalition ministry was brought 
together, a complex mass of discordant elements. It was 
disliked by all, and many men from both parties deserted 
it and joined themselves to Pitt. During part of the 
eight months through which it lasted Pitt visited France. 
He returned in November, and threw himself into the fray 
against Fox's India Bill. It passed in the Commons, but 
was defeated in the Lords, and the King, who was himself 
bitterly hostile to it, thereupon dismissed his ministers 
and again sent for Pitt. Pitt now accepted, and on 
December 19, 1783, he walked into the House of Commons 
as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. He was then twenty four years of age, the 
youngest Prime Minister ever known. 

With some difficulty he formed an administration, and 
when it was completed he himself was the only member of 
it who sat in the Lower House. No one thought that it 
would last for more than a few weeks, but Pitt knew what 
he was about. 

* Jennings, 147. 



HIS FIEST MINISTEY 89 

.,4.t the beginning of his ministry he suffered a series of 
defeats in the House of Commons, but with unexampled 
courage and dexterity he held on, relying on the support 
of the King and the peers. Gradually the Opposition 
began to tire, and he omitted no means of conciliating 
popular approval. Shortly after he took ofhce the lucrative 
Clerkship of the Pells had fallen to his gift. But, although 
a poor man, he refused to take it for himself, and so gained 
a lasting reputation for honesty and disinterestedness. 

Three months later, when matters showed signs of 
improving, he advised the King to dissolve Parliament. 
The general election sent him back with a triumphant 
majority, which was to keep him in power for seventeen 
years. He now took in hand the national finances, to the 
betterment of which he devoted all his talents. His 
success was rapid. The King, writing to him in July, 
1784, says : "It is with infinite satisfaction that I learn 
from Mr. Pitt's letter that the various Resolutions proposed 
yesterday to the House of Commons on the subjects of 
the loan, the subscription for the unfunded debt, and the 
taxes were unanimously agreed to.''* It was on this 
financial policy that Pitt's government was based. Its 
main principles were a sinking fund and a reduction of 
customs duties, and they soon began to bear fruit. He 
followed them up by a commercial treaty with France, and 
later on began to encourage parliamentary reform and to 
attack the slave trade. At this time everything that Pitt 
did seemed to succeed. Gibbon in a letter in October, 
1784, says of him: " A youth of five and twenty who raises 
himself to the government of an Empire by the power of 
genius and the reputation of virtue is a circumstance un- 
paralleled in history and in a general view is not less 
glorious to the country than to himself."! The RoUiad a 
year later parodies this sentiment : 

" A sight to make surrounding nations stare: 
A Kingdom trusted to a schoolboy's care." 

In 1785 Pitt purchased Hollwood, a small estate in Kent, 
where his few intimate friends, William Grenville, Wilber- 
* Stanhope, " Pitt," i., app. xii. t Gibbon Corresp. 



90 PITT 

force, Dundas, Kose and Addington, used to visit him. 
He rode, worked and saw a little company, but otherwise 
led a quiet and retired life. 

His ministry continued without many obstacles for 
several years, but in 1788, on the Eegency Bill caused 
by the King's first attack of insanity, strenuous efforts 
were made to dislodge Pitt by Fox and the friends of 
the Prince of Wales. The King's opportune recovery, 
however, saved him, and he found his position much 
strengthened. 

His popularity at this time was remarkable, for when it 
was known that his private circumstances were embarrassed, 
a sum of £100,000 was subscribed in the City and offered 
him as a free gift. He refused it unconditionally, but 
the proposal illustrates the esteem in which he was held. 
Shortly afterwards the King wished to give him the Garter, 
but this also he declined. The King in reply says : " I have 
just received Mr. Pitt's letter declining my offer of one of 
the vacant Garters, but in so handsome a manner that I 
cannot help expressing my sensibility."* In 1792, how- 
ever, he accepted the place of Lord Warden of the Cinque 
Ports, with a salary of nearly £3,000 a year and Walmer 
Castle to live in. 

His position now began to alter. The French Revolution 
had rapidly grown to a head; it soon occasioned important 
changes in the opinions not only of Pitt but also of other 
political leaders. Burke and Fox took dift'erent sides, the 
latter being inclined to favour the new doctrines, while the 
former was all for law and order. In 1793 England declared 
war on France, and thenceforward Pitt was carried along 
by the tide of circumstance. Indeed, he never really 
understood the meaning of the French Revolution. He 
was not, like his father, a war minister, but he was driven 
into a position which he could not avoid. Hitherto he had 
been a mild and moderate reformer, though the Whigs had 
long looked at him askance, and he never entered Brooks's 
Club after 1784.t He now became an energetic and almost 
arbitrary reactionary. In 1794 Portland and several of the 

* Stanhope, " Pitt," app. xiii. f Brougham, i. 201, note. 



HIS DIFFICULTIES 91 

more moderate Whigs accepted office in the government. 
This strengthened Pitt's hands, and he was able to put a 
firm policy into effect. The militia were called out, the 
Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and repressive measures 
were imposed in England and Ireland to prevent the French 
revolutionary spirit from spreading. The war began and 
the political horizon rapidly clouded. 

During the dark and difficult years that followed, Pitt's 
conduct of affairs, despite his policy, remained uniformly 
cool and consistent. In the suspension of the Bank Act, 
the several naval mutinies, the rebellion in Ireland, and 
the various projects for national defence, he showed the 
same clear view, the same careful thought, and the same 
rapid decision. Yet his military measures were rarely 
successful, though he usually succeeded in convincing the 
House of Commons that they were. It was said that during 
a long and calamitous period every disaster that happened 
outside the walls of Parliament was followed by a triumph 
within them. The Opposition had so much diminished 
in power that the influence of Pitt was supreme. 

His political duel with Tierney in 1798 marked a change. 
The work that he had to deal with was crushing, and his 
health showed frequent signs of failure. His naturally 
weak constitution had not been improved by the lack of 
exercise that the cares of office entailed, nor by the large 
libations of port wine which he regularly took as a tonic. 
His pecuniary affairs also remained much involved, though 
they did not often trouble him. Extremely careful of the 
public money, he was singularly improvident of his own, 
and his household expenditure was lavish to a degree for 
which there was no necessity and no return. 

Meanwhile the war continued with only moderate results, 
though the victories of Wellington in India and of Nelson 
in Egypt enhanced Pitt's prestige. Ireland he had kept 
under control to some extent, and at the end of the cen- 
tury he was able to pass the Bill for the Union. Foreign 
affairs, with the aid of his cousin Grenville, he had managed 
fairly well. He had been seventeen years in office, with 
few failures and many successes to his credit. He was 



92 PITT 

still liked by the King and admired by the people, while 
his own party idolized him. 

Suddenly there came a hitch. Pitt had promised his 
Irish supporters that he would give efiect to some measure 
of Catholic relief. He opened his proposals to the King, 
but the King, who thought them a violation of his Corona- 
tion oath, would not hear of them. Addington, the 
Speaker, was called in to negotiate, but George III. was 
adamant, and Pitt would not desert a principle. An im- 
'passe resulted, and early in 1801 Pitt resigned. The King, 
says Lord Malmesbury, had for a long time since been 
dissatisfied with Pitt's and particularly with Lord Gren- 
ville's " authoritative manners " towards him, and an 
alteration in his ministry had been long in his mind.* To 
the country, however, the news was a bolt from the blue, 
though Pitt endeavoured to soften the blow. With his 
approval the King confided the government to Addington, 
who was one of Pitt's closest friends. Pitt promised to 
support him, and persuaded most of his colleagues 
to keep their offices. But the change was too radical 
to inspire public confidence. On the announcement of 
Pitt relinquishing the Treasury, the funds fell five points, 
though no one believed that the new arrangement would 
continue for long. The King was well aware that in losing 
his minister he had lost a tower of strength, and he is 
reported to have drawn Pitt and Addington aside into 
a window at a levee at St. James's, and to have said: " If 
we three do but keep together all will go well."! The 
pious wish was not fulfilled. 

Pitt now reduced his attendances in Parliament, though 
he was still consulted by the new Cabinet. He lived chiefly 
at Walmer, for his money matters had become worse, and 
eventually he was compelled to sell Holwood and to accept 
a loan from some of his private friends. 

In March 1802 the Treaty of Amiens was signed. Pitt's 

late administration of the war had been criticized by some 

of his opponents, but their motions had been defeated and 

his popularity remained as great as ever. It was about 

* Malmesbury, iv. 22. f Pellew, i. 331, note. 



HIS SECOND MINISTRY 93 

this time that Canning's song " The Pilot that weathered 
the storm " was written for a dinner in honour of Pitt's 
birthday. It is emblematic of the confidence which the 
nation felt in him. 

In the meantime, however, Pitt and Addington had 
become estranged. This was partly due to the former's 
disapproval of the government's conduct of foreign policy 
and partly to the active hostility of Malmesbury, Canning 
and Rose, Pitt's principal friends. Several overtures were 
made to him to enter Addington's ministry, but they were 
unsuccessful, and gradually he became identified with the 
Opposition. Leisure disturbed him: he had no outside 
interests; power to him was a necessity. 

In 1803 war was again declared on France. Addington's 
government was hesitating and weak, and it soon became 
clear that Pitt would be compelled to resume the direction 
of affairs. With Fox and Grenville he united in an attack 
on the ministers, and in April 1804 they resigned, and 
Pitt at once returned to office. During these three years 
he had borne himself with the most careful regard to the 
country's welfare and with rare restraint. 

In forming his second administration Pitt was unable to 
enlist the services of his late allies. The King objected to 
Fox, and Grrenville would not join alone. Pitt greatly 
resented the latter 's defection. " I will teach that proud 
man," he said of his cousin, " that in the service and in the 
confidence of the King I can do without him, though I 
think my health such that it may cost me my life."* He 
fell back on his other friends, and a year later a reconcilia- 
tion was effected with Addington, who then re-entered the 
Cabinet. 

The country was now embarked on its long final war with 
Napoleon. The key of Pitt's policy of resistance was 
Continental alliances. But his difficulties were consider- 
able, for his old Foreign Minister had left him, and he had 
arrayed against him some of the strongest men in the House 
of Commons. This was largely due to the King's op- 
position to Fox, which had prevented the formation of a 
* Stanhope, " Pitt," iv. 174. 



94 PITT 

really strong government. Pitt's health was also much 
enfeebled, and he bore his heavy share in public business 
less easily than before. The defeat at Ulm and the death of 
Nelson affected him severely, though his spirit never 
flagged. At the Guildhall banquet on November 9, 1805, 
replying to the toast of his health, he said: " I return you 
many thanks for the honour you have done me ; but Europe 
is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved 
herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe 
by her example."* It was his last speech in public. 

In December he went to Bath. There he received the 
news of Austerlitz, which shook him terribly, and was 
probably the immediate cause of his death. " Roll up that 
map," he said, pointing to the map of Europe; "it will 
not be wanted these ten years." He returned to Putney, 
became weaker and weaker, and died on January 23, 1806, 
his last words being, " Oh, my country !"t 

His debts were paid by Parliament, and, like his father 
before him, he was buried with a public funeral in West- 
minster Abbey. " After the lapse of more than twenty- 
seven years," says Macaulay, " in a season as dark and 
perilous, his own shattered frame and broken heart were 
laid, with the same pomp, in the same consecrated mould."} 
He had died on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the day on 
which he had first entered Parliament — the greatest genius 
in the management of that Parliament that had ever lived. 

Pitt was forty-six years old at his death. Only one 
Prime Minister had lived a shorter life, and only one had 
held the office for a longer time. He had never married, 
though there had once been a suggestion that he should 
espouse Mdlle. Necker, afterwards Madame de Stael.§ He 
was for some years much attached to Miss Eden, a 
daughter of Lord Auckland. But his finances precluded 
their union, and his health perhaps did not encourage it. 

In appearance Pitt was thin and upright, with a pro- 
minent profile, chestnut hair, a " port-wine " complexion 
and a pointed nose. His eyes were singularly brilliant. 

* Stanhope, " Pitt," iv. 346. 

f Ihid., 382. Lord Eosebery gives another version, " Pitt," 297. 

X Macaulay, vii. 279. § Brougham, i. 208, note. 



HIS QUALITIES 95 

His carriage was dignified, though he had a rather prim, 
grave and disdainful manner. At times he was imperious 
and even inclined to arrogance, but when warmed with 
eloquence the light of genius animated his expression and 
gave him extraordinary majesty. His voice was sonorous, 
his gesture gracious and his choice of words full and 
apposite. In language he was extremely versatile, ex- 
celling equally in lucidity, in obscurity or in sarcasm, 
though he never approached the oratory of his father.* 
His budget speeches were rarely dull and always convincing, 
and as a financier he surpassed all his contemporaries. A 
man of unrivalled self-possession, he was at once eager, 
calm, of admirable judgment and of punctilious honour. 
His industry was immense, his grasp of mind vast and his 
sense unerring. Having come so young into high office, 
his authority, decision and resource gradually became so 
undisputed, rapid and ready that he acquired a unique 
position in Parliament. With the King he was a mayor 
of the palace, with the country a tradition, and with his 
party a magnet that attracted and enchained their loyalty. 
" He had," said Canning, " qualities rare in their separate 
excellence, wonderful in their combination. ''t "Dispens- 
ing for near twenty years the favours of the Crown, he 
lived without ostentation, and he died poor." 

Of his political development Wraxall says: " It appeared 
to me that Pitt had received from nature a greater mixture 
of republican spirit than animated his rival (Fox); but 
royal favour and employment softened its asperity."! May 
takes much the same view: "He had been born and 
educated a Whig. He had striven to confine the influence 
of the Crown, and enlarge the liberties of the people. But 
before his principles had time to ripen, he found himself 
the first minister of a Tory King, and the leader of the 
triumphant Tory party. The doctrines of that party he 
never accepted or avowed. If he carried them into effect, 
it was on the ground of expediency rather than of prin- 
ciple."§ 

* Windham used to call it " tte State paper style," May, i. 491. 
t Stapleton, 87. } May, ii. 20, note. § Ihid., 25. 



96 PITT 

In private life and among his few intimate friends and 
relations Pitt could put off the cares of office and become 
a simple and amusing companion. He used to play cards 
on occasion, and even in middle age he would indulge 
in bear-fights with children and sometimes with adults. 
His health was so dependent on regularity that the least 
alteration of his habits often upset him for several days. 
Neither the turf, play, the theatre nor field sports appealed 
to him. In his relations with women he was exceptionally 
moral — a matter which afforded the EoUiad much material 
for lampoons — but to the bottle he was a devotee. Riding 
back late one night in 1784 from Addiscombe, where he had 
been dining with Jenkinson, he galloped past the toll-gate 
at Streatham without paying the fee, and was fired at by 
the gatekeeper, who mistook him for a highwayman. 

" Him as lie wandered darkUng o'er tlie plain 
His reason lost in Jenkinson's cliampagne, 
A peasant's hand but that just Fate withstood 
Had shed a Premier's for a robber's blood."* 

In general knowledge he was deficient, for he had never 
had the opportunity of acquiring it, and for literature and 
art in their wider sense he cared little, his reading being 
limited to the ancient classics and a few of the greater 
English writers such as Shakespeare and Milton. Lord 
Grenville called him the best Greek scholar with whom 
he had ever conversed. Like his father he was a keen 
gardener, but his work was his real pleasure, and even 
this was limited, for he was essentially a House of Com- 
mons man. Legislation and administration interested 
him far less than the management of Parliament, in which 
he was a past-master. 

Three-quarters of his time in office were spent in striving 
to resist the Revolution in France, the rebellion in Ireland 
and the ruin of Europe. To withstand such calamities 
he was often driven to harsh expedients. Yet much of 
his earlier policy was thoroughly liberal. He was a con- 
sistent advocate of parliamentary reform, of the abolition 

* Wraxall, " Mem.," ii. 490. 




JV. Oicen pinx. 



F. Bartolozzi so. 



WILLIAM PITT 



To face page 96 



HIS POLICY 97 

of slavery and of Catholic relief. His sympathies were 
with the middle classes, for he believed in Walpole's 
maxims and understood the benefits of free commerce and 
production. He leavened the patrician oligarchy of the 
Whigs with a new plebeian aristocracy, and he is credited 
with having said that anyone with £10,000 a year had a 
right to a peerage. A sound and practical financier, he 
abolished eighty-five sinecures, among other economies, 
and saved the Exchequer accordingly. His principal 
intimates and supporters were all new men, Canning — 
whom he loved as a son — Rose, Addington, Jenkinson, 
Ryder and Dundas, and he left them a legacy of political 
power which lasted a quarter of a century. His long tenure 
of office made a definite break with the old system, for 
none of the Prime Ministers who followed him, except the 
aged Duke of Portland, had ever served with Chatham, 
Rockingham or North. Thus his policy remained for 
many years a pattern for succeeding statesmen. 

A patriot like his father, Pitt enjoyed a longer but a less 
successful lease of power. Engaged for most of his life in 
a defensive war, his liberal tendencies were warped and his 
projects of progress deferred. He had enough to do in 
steering the ship of state through a sea of troubles, in 
constant danger of rocks ahead and of mutiny on board. If 
his speech was stern and his hand heavy, it was because 
he had to save England at once from her friends and her 
foes. His spirit never faltered, his vision was not dimmed 
and, like his father, he was most formidable in defeat. 

" Per damna, per caedes ab ipso 
Ducit opes animumque ferro." 

What their country owes to the Pitts she is not likely to 
forget. 



CHAPTEE V 
THE GKENYILLES 

GEORGE AND WILLIAM GRENVILLE 

The Grenvilles were an old and rich family of Buck- 
inghamsliire squires. They had intermarried with the 
Temples, another old and much richer family in the same 
county, and by this alliance had ensured their future. 
Their history was at first simple. Richard Grenville of 
Wotton, M.P. for Wendover and Buckingham, had lived 
the ordinary life of his ancestors. He had married Hester 
Temple, and died in 1727, a country gentleman. But 
Richard Temple, his brother-in-law, was a very different 
person. Having gained considerable distinction as a 
soldier under Marlborough, he had received successively 
the command of a series of regiments, a red ribbon, the 
lord-lieutenancy of his county and a peerage, which was 
entailed on his sister failing male heirs. He much enlarged 
his fine house of Stowe, where he entertained Bolingbroke, 
Pulteney, Congreve and Pope, and was altogether an 
important figure in the first half of the eighteenth century. 
But towards the end of his days he had fallen out with Sir 
Robert Walpole. He then collected round him his 
nephews by blood and marriage, Grenvilles, Lytteltons 
and Pitts, all young and brilliant Etonians, and prepared 
to do battle. They were sound enough Whigs, but they 
were eager for a fight against the old minister, especially 
on behalf of their hospitable uncle. Lord Cobham. They 
were called " Gobham's cubs," the " Cousins," the '' Boy 
Patriots," and soon became serious thorns in Sir Robert's 
flanks, for they practised their politics with skill and 
strategy. To Cobham and his successors politics were a 
regular profession, by means of which the fortunes of 
England and of the Grenvilles were to be advanced fari 

98 



THE GRENVILLE IDEA 99 

passu. This spirit lie inculcated into those who came after 
him, and they responded nobly to his expectations. With 
every generation a solid accretion of land and wealth, a 
step in the peerage and a comfortable share of places and 
pensions were achieved. Temfla quam dilecta, " How dear 
are the Temples," was a well-chosen motto for the com- 
bined families. 

George and William Grenville, Chatham and William 
Pitt, were in their own eyes and in those of the world very 
considerable people, for they were Prime Ministers of 
England. But to the head of the house of Grenville, and 
perhaps subconsciously to themselves, they were but so 
many pawns on the exchequer board which were to aid 
him in securing a sinecure, a Garter, a white staff or a better 
coronet. This family solidarity, these mass tactics of dis- 
ciplined acquisitiveness, help to explain their careers and 
the curious race influence to which they were subjected. 
They rated themselves high, and on those who had 
patronage to dispense they exercised the fascination of 
basilisks. For many years it was an axiom in the Pitt 
family that " the Grenvilles must be taken care of.'' 
Later on, in the days of Liverpool, Lord Holland says: 
" All articles are now to be had at low prices except Gren- 
villes";* and less than a hundred years ago a Duke of 
Buckingham fought a Duke of Bedford in Kensington 
Gardens for calling the Grenvilles a family of cormorants. 

Of the two Grenvilles who became Prime Ministers neither 
rose to fame. They were both Whigs, and the King was a 
Tory. They were both obstinate, and so was he. And 
although they were clever and competent men, neither their 
abilities nor their address were of the sort calculated to 
overcome royal prejudices or to conciliate popular favour. 
" The brotherhood," said George III., " must always either 
govern despotically or oppose government violently, "f 
But though integrity and talents may not always achieve 
success, dogged determination usually commands respect, 
and that respect, albeit rather grudgingly accorded, the 
Grenvilles rarely failed to earn. 

* Gibbs, ii. 408. f Jesse, " George III.," iii. 369. 



100 GEORGE GRENVILLE 



I.— GEORGE GRENVILLE 

George Grenville was born at Wotton on October M, 
1712, the second son of Richard Grenville aforesaid and of 
his wife Hester, daughter of Sir Richard Temple, third 
baronet of Stowe. She subsequently became heiress to 
her brother, afterwards Lord Cobham. Of Grenville's 
earliest days not much is known. He and his elder 
brother Richard were sent to Eton, where they were in 
the Lower Fourth when Pitt was in Sixth Form. Gren- 
ville went on to Christ Church, Oxford, and then read for 
the Bar at the Inner Temple, where he was called in 1735. 
His intention was to practise, and for some few years he 
did so, but in 1741, at his uncle's request, he came into 
Parliament as member for Buckingham, a seat which he 
held until his death, twenty-nine years later. His brother 
Richard was already in the House of Commons, as were 
several of his cousins and connections, Lytteltons and 
Pitts. He joined their band, became a critic of the 
administration, and is mentioned by Horace Walpole as 
making a " glorious speech "* in the memorable debates of 
February, 1742, when the great Sir Robert fell. 

As soon as the Pelhams were fairly established in power, 
two years later, a place was found for Grenville at the 
Board of Admiralty, and in 1747 he was made a Junior 
Lord of the Treasury. He was an industrious, careful and 
capable official, and did his work well. In 1749 he married 
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wyndham, and sister 
of Charles, Earl of Egremont. " She was a strong-minded, 
probably an ambitious woman," says Lord Russell, " and 
was believed to exercise great influence over her husband's 
political conduct."! In this year his uncle died, and his 
mother became Viscountess Cobham, Richard Grenville 
lost no time in getting her made a countess, employing 
George's good offices for that purpose. In 1752 she also 
died, and Richard, who then became Lord Tem.ple and had 
married an heiress, found himself one of the richest men 

* H. Walpole, " Letters," i. 118. f " Bedford," iii. 324, note. 



HIS SLOW ADVANCE 101 

in England. His relations were gradually getting into 
office, and in two years William Pitt, already famous, was 
to marry his sister. George Grenville's position thus looked 
promising, and his political future seemed assured. 

He had by now become Treasurer of the Navy, and was 
soon admitted to the Privy Council. In 1754, however, 
Pelham died, and Newcastle ignored Pitt's claims to pro- 
motion. Pitt and Grenville accordingly attacked the 
government, and shortly afterwards they were dismissed 
from it. But Pitt was a dangerous enemy to provoke. 
He drove Newcastle within a year to resign, and in 1756 
Grenville resumed his old place under Devonshire, Pitt's 
nominee as the new Prime Minister. Seven months later, 
after a few weeks out of office, he resumed it a third time 
in the combined Newcastle and Pitt ministry. On this 
occasion he had hoped for the rich post of Paymaster- 
General, for money meant a good deal to him. That place, 
however, was given to Fox. Grenville thought that Pitt 
might have got it for him, and the grievance rankled. But 
he was patient as well as ambitious, and he continued 
friends with his powerful brother-in-law, who was now 
Secretary of State, helping him in his work and becoming 
godfather to his younger son William. 

With the accession of George III. and the entry of 
Lord Bute on to the political stage the balance shifted. 
The latter began to oust Pitt from Grenville's affec- 
tions. In September, 1761, Bute already calls Grenville 
by his Christian name, and speaks of the " approba- 
tion of a few friends I highly regard, amongst whom 
George Grenville stands in the foremost rank."* When in 
1761 Pitt and Temple left the ministry, Grenville remained 
on, and this apparent desertion subsequently occasioned 
a quarrel between him and them. Barrington, writing on 
October 9, says: " Lady Hester Pitt is a peeress. Mr. Pitt 
has a Grant of £3,000 for his own life and two others; and 
. . . Lord Temple resigned the Privy Seal the very day 
that his brother-in-law got a pension and his sister a 
coronet. George Grenville has refused to be Secretary of 
* Grenville, i. 388. 



102 GEOEGE GRENVILLE 

State and will have the conduct of the House of Commons, 
remaining Treasurer of the Navy. He is already a 
Cabinet Councillor and will be at all the private meetings 
of the ministers. However, the Seals go in the family, for 
Lord Egremont has got them.'"* 

Grenville was now offered Pitt's place, which, however, 
he refused. There was then a question of his becoming 
Speaker, but this honour he also declined, at the King's 
express desire. He writes to Mr. Prowse, another candi- 
date for the Chair: "The King having been pleased to 
signify to me his earnest wishes that I should decline going 
into the chair of the House of Commons, to which the 
favourable opinion of many very considerable persons, 
however unworthy I may be of it, proposed to have called 
me, it becomes me from every motive both of gratitude 
and duty to obey, though I will freely own to you, for 
many reasons, that I do it in this particular and at this 
time with the greatest reluctancy, as I should have looked 
upon the Chair as the highest honour that could have 
befallen me, and as a safe retreat from those storms and 
that uneasiness to which all other public situations, and more 
especially at this juncture, are unavoidedly exposed."! 

Eventually Grenville agreed to take the lead of the 
House of Commons, while continuing to be only Treasurer 
of the Navy. There is a detailed account of the trans- 
actions in his memoirs and those of his wife, which from 
it would appear that he acted with some loyalty and 
reserve throughout the negotiations. 

In May, 1762, Newcastle followed Pitt out of office. 
Bute became Prime Minister, and Grenville succeeded him 
as Secretary of State, though he did not take over the 
management of the members of Parliament. In October 
he was moved to the Admiralty to make room for Fox 
who replaced him as leader of the House. In this step- 
down Grenville acquiesced, though with considerable 
demur. Bute, however, was grateful, and when in April 
1763 he was compelled by his own unpopularity to resign 
it was Grenville whom he recommended as his successor. 
* Ellis, 2nd series, iv. 444. f Grenville, i. 398. 




IF. Hoarc 'pinx. 



GEORGE GRENVILLE 



To face page 102 



HIS MINISTRY 103 

The King agreed, and Grenville moved to Downing Street. 
He knew that Bute expected to control him, but he had 
not any intention of submitting to such a control. 

Then began what Macaulay called " the worst adminis- 
tration that has governed England since the Revolu- 
tion."* One of Grenville's first acts was to dismiss his elder 
brother from the lord-lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire; 
this was done within a month of his taking office, and was 
ostensibly due to the King's dislike of the line followed 
by Temple in the Wilkes affair. About this the brothers 
naturally fell out again, and Pitt again took Temple's side. 
Bute still remained in close touch with the King, and the 
ministers soon began to find his presence and secret advice 
extremely embarrassing. Grenville voiced his complaints, 
which Bute, of course, resented. In August Lord Egremont 
died. He was one of the Secretaries of State and Gren- 
ville's brother-in-law. Bute seized the opportunity of 
attempting to bring Pitt back into office, and he almost 
succeeded. Grenville then definitely broke with Bute and 
insisted upon his retiring to the country. Some such 
move, indeed, had become a necessity owing to the general 
belief that the hated Scotsman still influenced the King. 

Writing round to his friends at this time, Grenville says: 
" Lord Bute out of regard to what he thinks will be most 
for his Majesty's interest has declared that he is determined 
to retire and to absent himself not only from the Councils 
but from the presence and place of residence of his Majesty 
until the suspicion of his influence on public business shall 
be entirely removed."t This agreeable circular Grenville 
made the King approve of before it was despatched. 

The King disliked Bute's dismissal quite as much as 
he resented the way in which Grenville had enforced it, for 
Grenville never hesitated to say what he thought in the 
bluntest possible manner. On one occasion, writing in his 
diary an account of an audience, he says : " The King 
grew warm and said ' Good God, Mr. Grenville, am I to be 
suspected after all I have done V "% 

Grenville's bearing was nearly as arrogant, didactic and 

* Macaulay, vii. 241. f Grenville, ii. 106. % Ibid., ii. 210. 



104 GEOEGE GE^NVILLE 

tiresome as that of Ms brother Temple, whom the King 
absolutely abhorred. But occasionally he met his match. 
During this session, when speaking in the House of 
Commons on the unpopular cyder tax, he had asked where 
else he could get the money. " Tell me where, " he repeated 
several times. Pitt, who was sitting opposite, hummed 
Howard's well-known lines, " Gentle Shepherd, tell me 
where.'" The House was amused, and the nickname 
*' Gentle Shepherd " stuck to Grenville for the rest of 
his life.* 

The Wilkes prosecution had already damaged the 
ministry. The King, who was never above sowing discord 
among his ministers, continually commiserated Grenville, 
telling him that his colleagues Halifax and Sandwich 
were working against him. The American Stamp Act now 
added to their troubles. Early in 1765 Grenville at last 
noticed that the King began to show him signs of coolness, 
distance, estrangement and embarrassment, due, perhaps, 
to his " continual remonstrances." On the Regency Bill 
being brought in, His Majesty was deeply offended with the 
ministers at the omission of his mother's name. He 
privately sent for Pitt, and even for Temple, and again saw 
Bute. Grenville complained strongly about this want of 
confidence, and the King resented this still more. The 
ministers next made definite propositions to the King as 
to alterations in his system of government; and to these 
His Majesty was unwillingly forced to agree. More bad 
blood was set up. Grenville, with his usual tact, selected 
the occasion for asking for some sinecure posts for his 
family. The King then determined to get rid of him at any 
price — even that of a Whig. He came to an arrangement 
with Rockingham, and on July 10 ordered Grenville to 
re:^:gn the seals. At his audience the King said that he had 
found himself too much constrained, and that when he had 
anything proposed to him it was no longer as counsel, but 
what he was to obey."t To the Duke of Bedford he 
remarked that he had given his ministers all the confidence 
necessary for the despatch of public business, but that " as 
* Jennings, 126 (sense). f Grenville, iii. 213. 



HIS EARLY DEATH 105 

to favour they had not taken the way to merit it. When 
Mr. Grenville has wearied me for two hours, he looks at 
his watch to see if he may not tire me for an hour more."* 
As the Duke of Wellington said many years later, 
George III. was " no listener.^t 

Rockingham only stayed in office a year. Then 
Chatham's ministry was formed, but neither Temple nor 
Grenville were included in it. The two brothers had 
become reconciled, and they now joined in opposing their 
brother-in-law. Early in 1767 Grenville succeeded in 
defeating a clause in the budget, for which he gained much 
applause. In the summer there was a question of Grafton's 
resigning and of Lord Rockingham's returning to office with 
the support of Temple and Grenville. Nothing, however, 
came of the project, for Grenville 's views were very strong 
as to asserting the sovereignty of Great Britain over her 
colonies, while Rockingham held different opinions. 

In December 1769 Grenville's wife died. She had long 
been ailing, and her death was a severe blow to her husband 
whose assistant and adviser she had always been. He 
never really recovered from the shock, and survived it 
less than a year. 

Early in 1770 he passed a Bill for regulating contro- 
verted elections to the House of Commons, a most useful 
measure and the principal political legacy by which he is 
known. In the summer he became ill and rapidly 
sickened, and in November 1770 he died. He left three 
sons — George, afterwards first Marquess of Buckingham; 
Thomas, the famous book collector, and William, who 
subsequently became Lord Grenville the Prime Minister. 
None have descendants in the male line now living. 

Grenville's appearance was not prepossessing. He was 
thin, colourless, rigid in carriage and punctilious in manner. 
As a speaker he was often tedious and redundant. He lacked 
tact both in the House of Commons and with the King, 
whom he lectured, hectored and bored. His pertinacity 
for places and pensions, even at the most inauspicious 
moments, resembled his brother's importunity for titles 
* H. Walpole, " George III.," ii. 160. f Jennings, 158. 



106 GEOKGE GRENVILLE 

and orders. But he had his good qualities. He had in- 
herited but a small fortune, and had early formed an 
economical plan of living in his small country house at 
Wotton. There he spent only his private income, always 
saving his pay. But he was neither penurious nor in- 
hospitable, and his brother, the magnificent lord of Stowe, 
thought it worth while to borrow his servants, his wine and 
his silver in order to entertain his princely guests. He 
writes from Stowe on September 14, 1768: 

" Dear Brother, 

" An express brings me word that the King of 
Denmark will accept of an early dinner; this changes my 
whole plan and distresses most exceedingly. I must beg 
the loan of your cook and your plate and will accept a dozen 
or so of your hermitage. The plate I will send for but 
beg you to despatch your cook in your one horse chaise 
as fast as possible. Your most truly affectionate 

" Temple."* 

Grenville had acquired an exceptional knowledge of the 
practice of the House of Commons, and was rightly called 
" a good Speaker spoilt." Horace Walpole says that he 
" was confessedly the ablest man of business in the House 
of Commons, and though not popular, of great authority 
there from his spirit, knowledge and gravity of character."f 
Lord Chatham styled him " universally able in the whole 
business of the House, and after Mr. Murray and Mr. Fox 
certainly one of the very best Parliament men. "J Knox, 
who knew him intimately, says : " Mr. Grenville, under a 
manner rather austere and forbidding, covered a heart as 
feeling and tender as any man ever possessed. He liked 
office as well for its emoluments as for its power; but in 
attention to himself he never failed to pay regard to the 
situations and circumstances" of his friends, though to 
neither would he warp the public interest or service in the 
smallest degree. Eigid in his opinions of public justice 

* GrenvHle, iv. 363. f H. Walpole, " George III.," iv. 188. 

X Chatham, i. 106. 



HIS CHARACTER 107 

and integrity and firm to inflexibility in the construction 
of his mind, he reprobated every suggestion of political 
expediency. . . . He was far from being indifferent to the 
good or ill opinion of the public. . . . That tediousness 
and repetition which his speeches in Parliament and his 
transactions with men of business were charged with were 
occasioned by the earnestness of his desire to satisfy and 
convince those he addressed of the purity of his motives 
and the propriety of his conduct."'* An account of him 
written in 1765, when he was Prime Minister, calls him 
" calm, deliberate, economical, attentive, steadfast to 
business early and late, attached to no dissipations or 
trifling amusements, always master of himself and never 
seen either at White's with the gamesters or at Newmarket 
with the jockeys . . . easy of access and of unblemished 
integrity.'' 

Burke thought well of him. In his speech on American 
taxation in 1774 he said: " Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was 
a first-rate figure in this country. With a masculine 
understanding and a stout and resolute heart he had an 
application undissipated and unwearied. He took public 
business not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a 
pleasure he was to enjoy; and he seemed to have no 
delight out of this House except in such things as in some 
way related to the business that was to be done within it. 
If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition 
was of a noble and generous strain. "f 

Grenville was a bad example of Horace's vir Justus et 
tenax propositi. Neither the will of the people nor the 
King's countenance could shake his solid mind. He was 
" Junius' pet statesman . . . the model and antitype 
of all constitutional pedants. "J Wedded to office, his 
motto might have been esse est administrari. No one will 
ever call him a great statesman, a great speaker or a great 
leader. In Lord Rosebery's words, he was merely an 
" able, narrow, laborious person."§ In some ways, indeed, 
he was singularly unfortunate, for he was responsible for 

* Chatliam, iii. 486, note. f Burke, " Works," i. 163. 

X Stephen, ii. 202. § Rosebery, "Chatham," 21. 



108 WILLIAM GRENVILLE 

one of the worst Acts that ever passed through Parliament. 
He had serious faults of character. He was obstinate, 
over-proud of his family, and inclined to overrate his own 
abilities and to underrate those of his friends. He was 
jealous, he was ambitious, he was avid of power and place. 
But, despite all this, he was an honest, industrious and 
capable public servant, doing his best for the State and 
maintaining through a chequered career, in unsympathetic 
surroundings, a sound and straightforward reputation. 

II.— WILLIAM GRENVILLE 

William Wjnidham Grenville was born on October 25, 
1759, at Wotton. He was the youngest son of George 
Grenville and of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wynd- 
ham. When he was four years old his father became 
Prime Minister, while one of his uncles was Secretary of 
State. Two other uncles were Lords Chatham and Temple, 
so that he was born and bred into the purple of high office. 

As a boy he was remarkably advanced. There is a good 
copy of verses that he wrote to Lady Temple at the age of 
eleven, and at school he already showed his later tastes 
for books, gardens and politics. On leaving Eton he went 
to Christ Church, Oxford, where he became a distinguished 
classical scholar. In 1780 he was entered at Lincoln's Inn, 
and two years later was elected member for Buckingham., 
his father's old seat. His name and his connections made 
his abilities more prominent. In 1782 Lord Shelburne 
came into office, with William Pitt, Grenville's first- 
cousin, as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The moment 
was propitious, and before he had been a year in Parlia- 
ment young Grenville was appointed Chief Secretary for 
Ireland, under his brother. Lord Temple. Even at this 
early age his opinions were considered of value. During 
the interregnum after Lord Shelburne's resignation, Gren- 
ville was twice consulted by the King on the political 
situation and made the repository of his confidences.* 
During the reign of the Coalition he was for a few months 
* Buckingham, i. 189, 212. Jesse, " George III.," ii. 423, U2. 



HIS RAPID RISE 109 

out of oflS.ce, but at the end of 1783 Pitt succeeded as Prime 
Minister, Grenville was then sworn a privy councillor 
and made Paymaster-General, the most lucrative place 
Pitt could give him. In 1786 he was appointed Vice- 
President of the Board of Trade, while his brother had 
been created Marquess of Buckingham. 

Grenville devoted himself to the work of his office and 
to supporting the ministry of his cousin, to whom he 
afforded continual and most useful assistance. Three years 
later, on the death of Cornwall, he was elected Speaker of 
the House of Commons, at the age of twenty-nine. This 
great position, which he accepted on condition that it 
should not " prejudice his other views," he held for only 
five months, when he was appointed Secretary of State for 
the Home Department. About this time. Fox, while 
animadverting on Grenville 's opposition to the impeach- 
ment of Warren Hastings, made the following prophecy: 
" I am concerned to hear such doctrines . . . fall from 
such a person — doctrines most inauspicious to the country, 
if, as his rank and abilities highly entitle him to expect, he 
should at some future time become, himself, first minister."* 

In the next year, 1790, he was raised to the peerage as 
Lord Grenville, and a few months later was made Foreign 
Secretary. Shortly afterwards he received the rich office 
of Auditor of the Exchequer, which he held at £4,000 a 
year for forty years. Such a rapid rise through so many 
of the principal offices of State had rarely been seen 
before. But Grenville was quite capable of justifying his 
promotion. 

For nearly ten years he now held the seals of the Foreign 
Office, acting also as leader of the government in the House 
of Lords. He was skilled in the politics of Europe, he had a 
good knowledge of foreign languages, and he had studied 
deeply the law of nations. He had an hereditary aptness 
for the routine of business, with accuracy of detail and 
unfailing industry. Few other avocations distracted his 
attention, and he became a most competent and experi- 
enced Foreign Minister. 

* Wraxall, " Post. Mem.," ii. 146. 



110 WILLIAM GRENVILLE 

In 1792, when his financial position was assured, he 
married Anne Pitt, daughter of Lord Camelford, and thus 
further allied himself with his cousin's family. He also 
purchased Dropmore, a small estate in Buckinghamshire, 
where he began to build a charming house and lay out 
gardens. He writes about it to his future wife: " I am 
more and more delighted with my purchase in Bucks, and 
have already begun upon the small addition I am making 
to the cottage. I shall be much disappointed if you are 
not pleased.''* 

His marriage seems to have been responsible for a con- 
siderable alteration for the better in his appearance. Lord 
Mornington, writing to him in October 1792 says: "I 
cannot tell you with how much pleasure I saw your menage. 
I told Pitt that matrimony had made three very important 
changes in you which could not but aftect your old friends 
— (1) a brown lapelled coat instead of the eternal blue 
single breasted, (2) strings in your shoes, (3) very good 
perfume in your hair powder."* 

Grenville's house and his marriage were in the future to 
count for much more with him than the struggles and toils 
of politics. He had not yet succeeded to the riches that 
were to smooth his later years. Writing to his brother in 
December 1796 about the War Loan, he says: "Lord 
Spencer, Lord Liverpool, Pitt and Dundas subscribe 
£10,000 as I have done; the two last will, I believe, have 
still more difiiculty in finding it than I shall. "f 

Throughout the French Revolution he carried on the 
external business of the country with a firm, tactful and 
wary hand. Malmesbury and Canning, both good diplo- 
matists, were his friends; and though he was personally 
opposed to the overtures for peace which Pitt made to 
France, he subordinated his opinion to those of his chief. 
His work at his ofiice was of the highest order, his des- 
patches being models of strength, lucidity and diction. 

In 1801 came the split between the King and Pitt on 
the subject of Catholic emancipation. Grenville, a strong 
Whig on such questions, resigned with his cousin and went 
* Boyle, 42, 43. f Buckingham, ii. 351. 



PEIME MINISTER 111 

into opposition; but while Pitt contented himself with a 
more or less passive role, Grenville and Canning attacked 
Addington on every occasion. In their battles they were 
joined by Fox, and when in 1804 Addington was obliged 
to retire, Grenville declined to serve with Pitt again unless 
Fox was included. The ministry, he said, was being 
" formed on a principle of exclusion.''* But the King 
refused to accept Fox, and Grenville accordingly remained 
outside the government. It seems that for some time he 
had been wavering as to who should in future be his leader. 
He was still a Whig, and he had, like all the Grenvilles, a 
tremendous belief in and reverence for his own family and 
their politics. He considered them the equals if not the 
superiors of anyone, not excepting even Pitt himself. 
Canning, talking to Malmesbury in 1802, said of Gren- 
ville: " He cannot be persuaded but that Lord Buckingham 
would be a good and popular Prime Minister, and whenever 
his family come upon him with this idea, it bears down 
before it every other consideration.'' Malmesbury replied 
that " this was nothing new to me, that I had been con- 
vinced of it for many years; and that although I believed 
Lord Grenville and his party had rather see Pitt first 
minister than either Addington or Fox, or any indifferent 
person, yet that they had much rather see Lord Bucking- 
ham first minister than Pitt."t Such ideas were exactly 
those of Grenville 's father and uncle, who had always 
thought themselves better men than Chatham. It may 
be also that in his own mind he had begun to demur to 
the ultra-Tory policy of Pitt. 

Grenville undoubtedly acted a loyal part in standing by 
Fox, and he soon reaped his reward. On Pitt's death early 
in 1806 he was called upon to form the ministry of All the 
Talents, a government which included nearly all that was 
then best on the Whig side of politics — Fox, Grey, Erskine, 
Spencer, Sheridan, Petty and Windham. It has been said 
that Fox was its real leader, and that Grenville played 
a secondary part, but this is an exaggeration. Fox had 
not been in office for over twenty years, he had latterly 
* Yonge, i. 143. f Malmesbury, iv. 90. 



112 WILLIAM GEENVILLE 

been mucL. away from Parliament, and lie was in very poor 
health. Grenville, on the other hand, had been a Secre- 
tary of State for twelve and a minister for eighteen years ; 
he had a recent and far more varied experience of public 
business than any member of the Cabinet, and he was strong 
and well. 

The ministry, however, did not fulfil its promise. Fox 
said of it, " We are three in a bed." It passed one memorable 
Act for the Suppression of the Slave Trade, but otherwise 
its career was as short as it was inglorious. In four- 
teen months the Catholic question was again brought 
forward, and the opportunity again enabled George III. 
to change his advisers. Grenville resigned, and the 
Duke of Portland came into office. In his account of this 
transaction the King said that '' Lord Grenville had 
behaved towards him very properly, and never forgot 
himself, or manifested any unbecoming harshness, or used 
any expression at all bordering on menace to go out. He 
only said at the conclusion of his audience . . . that if the 
Bill did not pass he could not consistently with his principles 
and duty continue to serve His Majesty in any official capa- 
city. . . ."* Sheridan, however, thought that Grenville 
had been much too quixotic in resigning. " I have known 
many men,'' he said, " knock their heads against a wall, 
but I never before heard of a man collecting bricks and 
building a wall for the express purpose of knocking out his 
own brains against it.^'f There is, however, no doubt that 
Grenville was really glad to get out of office. He writes to 
Lord Buckingham on March 27, 1807: " The deed is done 
and I am again a free man, and to you I may express what 
it would seem like affectation to say to others, the infinite 
pleasure I derive from my emancipation.'' J 

Grenville was not yet forty-eight, but his official life was 
now finished. In 1809 he was elected Chancellor of the 
University of Oxford, an appointment for which he was 
eminently suited and which gave him the greatest pleasure. 
In 1811 he was largely concerned in the Regency Bill, and 

* Malmesbury, iv. 372. f ^ay, i. 90. 

J Buckingliam, " George III.," iv. 149. 




T. Phillvps -pinx. 



A. FUtler so. 



WILLIAM GRENVILLE 

LORD GEBNVILLE 



To face page 112 



LATER LIFE 113 

it was then intended by the Prince of Wales, had he changed 
the ministry, that Grenville should have been Prime 
Minister. Later on offers were also made to him and to 
Lord Grey, both by Perceval and by the Regent, to join the 
government, but he declined them. He was, indeed, 
wedded to the delights of his beautiful home at Dropmore, 
where he gradually amassed splendid collections of books, 
marbles, china, prints and pictures, and had planted the 
rarest flowers and trees. His wife had inherited Bocon- 
noc in Cornwall, the home of her family, and Grenville had 
thus become a rich man. So he turned his mind to his 
gardens, his library, his estates, and to the pleasures of 
rural retirement, caring less and less for politics. Literature 
was another solace, for he edited the letters of his uncle, 
Lord Chatham, printed an annotated Homer, and wrote 
" Nugse Metricae," an attractive volume of translations 
into Latin from Greek, Italian and English. His friends 
he now advised to follow Lord Liverpool, while in foreign 
aftairs he adhered himself to the policy of Canning, who 
had been his pupil and subordinate. 

He still occasionally spoke in the House of Lords, and 
Romilly, in 1813, says of one of his speeches in favour of 
abolishing the capital penalty for shoplifting : " For strength 
of reasoning, for the enlarged views of a great statesman, 
for dignity of manner, and force of eloquence. Lord Gren- 
ville's was one of the best speeches that I have ever heard 
delivered in Parliament."* 

In 1815 Grenville was concerned with the Corn Laws, 
and he subsequently served on the secret committee 
appointed by Sidmouth to consider the repressive measures 
adopted in connection with the Luddite riots. In this 
matter he approved generally of the ministerial policy, 
and now rather drifted away from the old Whig ideas and 
did not oppose the government. In 1822 his nephew, the 
second Marquess of Buckingham, was raised to a dukedom, 
and the Grenvilles saw their fondest ambitions realized. 

The projects of parliamentary reform which came to 
the fore in the next reign did not meet with Lord Gren- 
ville's approval, though in other directions he still kept to 

* Romilly, iii. 95. 



114 WILLIAM GEENVILLE 

his liberal ideas, being a firm believer in Catholic relief 
and in Free Trade. But he lived almost entirely in the 
country and came little to London. Soon after 1830 he 
was struck by paralysis, but he did not die until January 
1834, when he was seventy-four years of age. He left no 
issue. 

Grenville had few personal attractions. " Nature," says 
Wraxall, " had bestowed on him no exterior advantages. 
His person was heavy and devoid of elegance or grace, his 
address cold and formal, his manners destitute of suavity. 
Even his eloquence partook of these defects."* His square 
and ponderous figure, his stubborn face and expression 
suggested the tenacity and strength of the bull-dog. But 
beneath all his apparent austerity of manner he had a 
heart, for he idolized his wife, and on hearing of his cousin 
Pitt's death he burst into a flood of tears, and he is said 
never to have forgotten his memory. His unconciliating 
manners and unbending nature caused him to be disliked 
both by George III. and George IV. — one of the few points 
on which they agreed. To the former he was repugnant 
as what he called " Popish," and perhaps also as the son 
of his old bugbear, George Grenville; to the latter because 
the style of his conversation did not descend to the requi- 
site level of Carlton House .f The old Lord Liverpool wrote 
of him in April, 1807: " Lord Grenville is the most extra- 
ordinary character I ever knew. He has talents of un- 
common industry, but he never sees a subject with all its 
bearings, and consequently his judgment can never be 
right. He is not an ill-tempered man, but he has no 
feelings for anyone, not even for those to whom they are 
most due. He is in his outward manner ofiensive to 
the last degree. He is rapacious with respect to himself 
and his family, but a great economist with respect to 
everyone and to everything else. J 

Grenville was a man of character as well as ability. 
Born a Whig and brought by circumstances and family 

* Wraxall, "Post. Mem.," i. 277. 

t Auckland, iv. 378, 389. Jesse, " George III.," iii. 534. 

X Auckland, iv. 308. 



HIS CHAEACTER 115 

connection into a Tory government, lie maintained most 
of his early principles throughout a long life. He had his 
own well-considered opinions, and he generally stuck to 
them, yet he recognized his limitations. " I am not com- 
petent to the management of men,'' he wrote to his 
brother, " and never was so naturally, and toil and anxiety 
more and more unfit me for it."'* " He was," says Lord 
Malmesbury, " the closest character possible — never relieved 
his mind by trusting anyone. "f ^^^ i^i council and execu- 
tive work he was of a high level. With all the moral and 
mechanical qualities of his father he had a far broader 
grasp and compass of intellect. Both as a speaker and as 
a despatch-writer he always displayed complete mastery 
of his subject, and for that reason he acquired exceptional 
weight and authority in the House of Lords and in the 
various embassies abroad. His interest in history made 
him a minister and a writer of exceptional value. An 
ardent advocate of the war with France, whom he regarded 
as England's chief enemy, he was a firm support to Pitt 
throughout his first ministry, and to his able conduct of 
foreign affairs may largely be ascribed the eventual vic- 
tories of England over Napoleon. 

Grenville's career was in some ways unique. At twenty- 
three he was in the ministry, he was the youngest Speaker 
of the House of Commons since the time of Edward III., and 
he had filled four of the highest offices in the State, including 
that of Prime Minister, before he was forty-eight years old. 
But remarkable as were his successes in life, his merits 
were not unequal to them. Learned, industrious, honest, 
acute and determined, he brought to the highest concerns 
of State a master mind. Perhaps the least known of his 
celebrated family, he was undoubtedly its most brilliant 
statesman. His pride, his tenacity and his reserve do not 
detract from his merits. 



Such were the Grenvilles. Their race had risen in a 
century from country squires to the highest rank in the 
* Buckingham, iv. 133. f Malmesbury, iv. 44. 



116 THE GRENVILLES 

peerage. They had acquired immense property and owned 
some of the finest houses in England. They had directed 
the councils of their country, held the first places in the 
State and drawn close on a million of public money from 
its coffers. " Within the space of fifty years," says 
Macaulay, " three first lords of the treasury, three secre- 
taries of state, two keepers of the privy seal and four first 
lords of the admiralty were appointed from among the sons 
and grandsons of the Countess Temple."* Then their 
fortunes began to decline. They became a striking illus- 
tration of Galton's theory in " Hereditary Genius," that a 
series of marriages with heiresses does not produce heirs. 
Generation after generation the males of the race decreased. 
Their wealth diminished, and their domains were sold. A 
century and a half after Richard Grenville first obtained his 
earldom there was no longer a Duke of Buckingham, their 
broad lands had passed to others, and now the palace of 
Stowe has fallen into the hands of the auctioneers, and the 
famous name of Grenville is almost forgotten in England. 

* Macaulay, vi. 254. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE KING'S MEN 

BUTE AND NORTH 

In the last years of Queen Anne tlie Tories had again 
struggled back to power after the serious damage they had 
sustained at the Revolution . But their hold was precarious . 
Bolingbroke did them little sfood and the Pretender much 
harm. The Treaty of Utrecht and the High Church party 
discredited them still further, and when in July 1714 
Lord Oxford handed over his white staf!, England was not 
to see another Tory government for eight-and -forty years. 
The Hanover succession and the Jacobite rebellion drove 
them quite outside the pale. " Throughout the whole of 
the reign of George 1.," says Macaulay, " and through 
nearly half the reign of George II., a Tory was regarded as 
an enemy of the reigning house and was excluded from 
all the favours of the Crown. Though most of the country 
gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were created peers 
and baronets. Though most of the clergy were Tories, none 
but Whigs were appointed deans and bishops. In every 
county opulent and well-descended Tory squires com- 
plained that their names were left out of the commission of 
the peace, while men of small estate and mean birth, who 
were for toleration and excise, septennial parliaments 
and standing armies, presided at quarter sessions and 
became deputy lieutenants."* The winning side knew 
how to maintain their position. " When the Hanover 
succession took place, the Whigs became the possessors 
of all the great offices and other lucrative employments; 

* Macaulay, vii. 206. 
117 



118 BUTE AND NORTH 

since which time, instead of quarrelling with the preroga- 
tive, they have been the champions of every adminis- 
tration/'* As their chief opponent said, " the appella- 
tions of Tory and Jacobite . . . are always ridiculously 
given to every man who does not bow to the brazen image 
that the King has set up/'f 

But as the long years rolled on the Whigs gradually 
became divided. By 1746 the House of Stuart had been 
finally beaten and that of Hanover definitely established. 
Danger had disappeared. In 1760 came a sweeping change. 
The old half -foreign King died. He was succeeded by a 
young Prince, born and bred in England, who had imbibed 
his views of government at the well of Bolingbroke. His 
chief advisers had hitherto been his mother, a German 
princess, and her Scottish favourite. Lord Bute. The 
policy that they advocated and that George III. adopted 
was that of the Patriot King. To put this into practice 
the first essential was that the Whig magnates should be 
ousted from the government. Such was the line that 
the Sovereign chose for himself. He followed it for most 
of his life, but it led far from the haven that he sought. 
The American colonies had to be jettisoned, the hated 
Catholics to be embarked, and the ship of State was 
finally to drift on to the rocks of the Reform Bill. But all 
this mattered little. The Whigs had been displaced and 
George III. was a King. 

At first it was not always easy to find pilots of the right 
temper, for, once at the helm, they often tried to steer 
their own course. The King's earliest choice was ephe- 
meral and by no means successful, but later on he did 
better, and what had failed in the green tree of Bute was 
put through with North in the dry. 

Quicquid delirant reges flectuntur Achivi. 

* Waldegrave, 20. 

t Bolingbroke, " Spirit of Patriotism." 




/. Reynolds xnnx. 



JOHN STUART 

3rd EAEL of BUTE 



To face page 118 



EARLY LIFE 119 



I.— BUTE 

John Stuart, afterwards tHrd Earl of Bute, was born 
on May 25, 1713. He was the elder son of James, the 
second earl, and of Lady Anne Campbell, daughter of 
Archibald, first Duke of Argyll. His family had been 
settled for several centuries in the island from which their 
title was taken, but though ancient and claiming descent 
from the priuces of Scotland, it was not famed beyond the 
confines of that kingdom. Of moderate means, it had 
only recently been ennobled, Bute's grandfather having 
been raised to the peerage at the time of the Scottish Union. 

Bute lost his father before he was ten years old, and 
was then sent to Eton, where he seems to have received 
most of his education. At the age of twenty- three he 
married Mary, daughter of the Hon. Edward Montagu and 
of Lady Mary Pierrepont, the famous letter-writer, and 
through her became connected with the Sandwich and 
Kingston families. In 1737 he was elected a representative 
peer for Scotland, but having voted against the govern- 
ment he was passed over for the next Parliament, and was 
for some time out of the House of Lords. For the next 
ten years he lived a quiet and obscure life in Scotland, 
occupying himself with agriculture, botany and archi- 
tecture, as little known in politics or society as he was to 
the world at large. 

In 1747, by a lucky chance, he made the acquaintance 
of Frederick, Prince of Wales. It was at a race meeting. 
Rain had begun to fall, and the Prince had retired to a tent 
and called for cards. There was no one of sufficient quality 
to take a hand with him until an equerry recollected that 
he had seen Lord Bute on the course. Bute was brought 
in, presented, and sat down at the table. An invitation 
to Leicester House followed, and in a short time he was 
established there as an ami de la maison, though the Prince 
himself never had any great opinions of his talents. He 
used to say that Bute was " a fine showy man who would 
make an excellent ambassador in a court where there was 

9 



120 BUTE 

no business." '' Such/' says Waldegrave, " was His Eoyal 
Highnesses opinion of the noble earFs political abilities; 
but the sagacity of the Princess has discovered other ac- 
complishments of which the Prince her husband may not 
perhaps have been the most competent judge."* Whatever 
the truth was, it soon began to be bruited about that Bute 
was the Princess's lover, and after her husband's death 
in 1751 he certainly became the principal person in her 
household. He was the subject of an apposite retort. 
The Princess had been commenting on the levity of one of 
her maids of honour, Miss Elizabeth Chudleigh — afterwards 
the notorious Duchess of Kingston — and had asked her 
" les raisons de cette conduite." " Ah, Madame," replied 
the young lady, " cJiacun a son hut." 

In the teeth of the old King and his ministers Bute was 
next appointed Groom of the Stole to the young Prince 
George, though the King refused to give him his gold key 
personally, and the Lord Chamberlain had to slip it quietly 
into Bute's pocket. His influence became as paramount 
with the heir-apparent as it was with his mother, and he 
was soon regarded as a power to be reckoned with in 
the future. 

In 1760 George III. came to the throne. Newcastle, 
the Prime Minister, attended with a draft of the royal 
speech for His Majesty to approve. " My lord Bute is 
your good friend," said the King; " he will tell you my 
thoughts."! Bute's corrections on this occasion only 
amounted to substituting the word " Briton " for " English- 
man," but the cue was given for the line to be followed. 
Bute was a Tory and a disciple of Bolingbroke's. He be- 
lieved in his own capacity to be a great minister. He had 
the ear of the King, and his advancement was not delayed. 
On October 27, two days after the King's accession, he was 
admitted to the Privy Council. Five months later Lord 
Holderness retired by arrangement, and Bute was ap- 
pointed Secretary of State in his place, though hitherto he 
had had no official experience. He soon began to intrigue 
in the Cabinet. This was not difficult, for Pitt's ways were 
* Waldegrave, 38, 39. f Jesse, " Etonians," i. 257. 



PRIME MINISTER 121 

neither conciliatory nor popular, the King disliked him, 
and Newcastle was always ready for a job. A cave was 
formed against the Great Commoner; he was outvoted on 
the question of the Spanish War, and in October 1761 he 
resigned. So far George III. had adhered to the policy laid 
down by his mentor. The Patriot King " must begin 
to govern as soon as he begins to reign. . . . His first care 
will be ... to purge his court and to call into the adminis- 
tration such men as he can assure himself will serve on the 
same principles on which he intends to govern."* 

Bute now made friends with George Grenville, who was 
abeady in the ministry, and with Shelburne, whom he 
designed to bring in. As soon as the time was ripe, in 
May 1762, Newcastle was given his conge and Bute suc- 
ceeded him as Prime Minister. Four months later he was 
made a Knight of the Garter. No rise for a poHtical 
recruit had ever been so rapid. 

Shelburne says of him at this time: " He panted for the 
Treasury, having a notion that the King and he understood 
it from what they had read about revenue and funds when 
they were at Kew. He likewise had an idea of great 
reformations . . . and a confused notion of rivalling the 
Due de Sully — all which notions gradually vanished. "f 

But his hasty and astonishing elevation had not made 
Bute's seat firm. At first surprise, next annoyance, and at 
last rage, greeted these arbitrary alterations in the 
administration. Bute was a Scotsman, he was a Tory 
and he was a royal favourite. He had succeeded in 
antagonizing not only the chief Whig families — which was 
his intention — but also the mass of popular opinion, which 
was not at all what he wanted. While Pitt was acclaimed 
in the City and in the country, Bute was hooted and 
lampooned, his coach was attacked, and jackboots and 
petticoats were publicly burnt near his residence as a 
delicate allusion to his amours with the Princess Dowager. 

He began to feel that in some respects a rose resembles a 
thistle. But quern Deus vult perdere prius dementat. He 

* Bolingbroke, " Patriot King." 
t Fitzmaurice, 141. 



122 BUTE 

continued his insensate policy. He made the King insult 
the Duke of Devonshire, who was his Lord Chamberlain, 
a recent Prime Minister, the leader of the Whig party and 
one of the first noblemen in England. He made him 
dismiss the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton and Lord 
Rockingham from their lord-lieutenancies. He even 
hounded out of their places all the minor myrmidons who 
might possibly be connected with the Whigs — house- 
keepers, messengers and tide-waiters. 

These were the last straws. Gradually he perceived tJiat 
his position was becoming untenable and he cast about 
how best to retreat. He determined to cease being the 
ostensible leader of the government, but to put a puppet in 
his place and then to pull the political strings in secret. 
For this purpose he engaged George Grenville in a closer 
intimacy and gave him the lead in the House of Commons. 
Grenville was competent and ambitious, and Bute thought 
that he was easy to manage. But in this he was mistaken. 

Before retiring definitely, Bute had determined to get 
the Peace of Paris agreed to by Parliament. It was a hard 
and a hazardous business, but he did not scruple about 
the means he employed. Fox, a past-master in such arts, 
was given the management of the House of Commons over 
Grenville's head, and was supplied with almost unlimited 
money from the secret service funds to secure the necessary 
majority. A regular office was opened at Westminster, 
where the votes of members of Parliament were bought 
more openly and more shamelessly than in the palmiest 
days of Walpole or Pelham. As much as £25,000 was 
paid out, it is said, in a single morning. But the Peace 
was passed, and in May 1763 Bute disappeared behind the 
throne in a lurid glow of Satanic glory. 

He had advised the King to appoint Grenville as his 
successor, and this was now done. But almost immediately 
a change in Grenville's attitude became visible. Bute's 
excuse for resigning had been his own unpopularity. 
Grenville alleged the same reason for not consulting him. 
Bute then tried to induce Pitt to upset Grenville. The 
scheme broke down, and Grenville retorted by compelling 



LATER LIFE 123 

the King to dispense altogether with Bute's counsel and to 
relieve him from residing in London. Bute accordingly 
went off to the country, and perhaps was not very sorry 
to go. His circumstances had become extremely un- 
pleasant. '' He went about the streets/' says Chesterfield, 
*' timidly and disgracefully, attended at a small distance 
by a gang of bruisers, the scoundrels and ruffians that 
attend the Bear Gardens."* On one or two occasions he 
had even been in danger of his life, and had been rescued 
by the Horseguards. 

From a personal point of view he had achieved much of 
what he wanted. He had got a British peerage for his 
wife, a well-paid place for his brother, the Garter and the 
highest position in the State for himself. The death of his 
father-in-law had recently brought him a considerable 
fortune, so that he no longer depended on the emoluments 
of office. Yet all this was dust and ashes. He retired to 
Luton, and Jenkinson, his secretary, describes him there 
in 1764, " in the lowest dejection of mind, scarce speaking 
a word, complaining and in a gloomy mood."t 

It was, in fact, the end of his part in politics. But the 
world did not think so. Common belief credited him for 
years with being the secret, unconstitutional and baneful 
adviser of the King, and minister after minister adopted 
the same view. It was not true, for George III. had rapidly 
come to dislike as much as he had formerly favoured him. J 
At last Bute was driven to go abroad, and he vanished 
for a time in Italy, where he used to travel incognito as 
Sir John Stuart, lamenting his unhappy lot. He felt his 
position keenly. To Lord Hardwicke he writes in 1767: 
" I know as little, save from newspapers, of the present 
busy scene as I do of transactions in Persia, and yet I am 
destined for ever to a double uneasiness ; that of incapacity 
to serve those I love and yet to be continually censured for 
every public transaction, though totally retired from courts 
and public business."§ His bad name long followed 
him. He was called John Thistle, Jack Boot, the Scotch 

* Jesse, " George III.," i. 269. t Grenville, ii. 497. 

% Brougham, i. 49. § Albemarle, i. 360. 



124 BUTE 

Thane and so on. In 1769 a rabble attacked his house in 
South Audley Street, and two years later his effigy, with 
that of the Princess Dowager, was beheaded and burnt by 
chimney-sweepers on Tower Hill. Such was the price he 
paid for his brief spell of power. 

When he was able to get away to Scotland, to Luton, 
to Wales or to Christchurch, where he had a solitary villa 
on a cliff, he interested himself in his old hobbies. He 
collected a fine gallery of pictures and a good library, he 
built and laid out gardens, and he entertained the literary 
celebrities of his country. For letters he had a real regard, 
and one of the few facts by which his administration is 
remembered was the grant of a. pension to Dr. Johnson. 
Yet he led a lonely life, though he had a large and prosperous 
family, to whom he was much attached. Thus he con- 
tinued for many years dismal, retired and avoided, until 
at last in 1792 he died a forgotten man. Four years later 
his eldest son was raised to a marquessate. The present 
peer is his descendant. 

Bute was of a personable figure, handsome, tall, slim 
and with a fine leg. The latter is much in evidence in the 
picture of him which Eamsay painted in 1760. It was 
still further embellished by the engraver three years later 
by the addition of the recently acquired garter. 

He had '' a supercilious manner and a theatrical air of 
the greatest importance." " He was a tolerable actor,"' 
says Macaulay, " and was particularly successful as 
Lothario. He dabbled in geometry, mechanics and botany 
. . . and was considered in his own circle as a judge of 
painting, architecture and poetry."* But the soundness 
of his attainments was always a matter of dispute. Walde- 
grave questioned them. " There is," he says, " an extra- 
ordinary appearance of wisdom, both in his look and manner 
of speaking; for whether the subject be serious or trifling, 
he is equally pompous, slow and sententious. Not con- 
tented with being wise, he would be thought a polite 
scholar, and a man of great erudition : but has the misfortune 
never to succeed, except with those who are exceeding 
* Macaulay, vii. 216. 



HIS CHAEACTER 125 

ignorant : for his historical knowledge is chiefly taken from 
tragedies, wherein he is very deeply read : and his classical 
learning extends no farther than a French translation."* 

Occasionally he could speak well. On the question of 
the Peace in 1763 the Duke of Cumberland, a fairly com- 
petent critic, called his speech " one of the finest he ever 
heard in his life." His delivery, however, was halting 
and solemn. Townshend likened it to minute-guns. 

Dr. Johnson, who knew something of him and was well 
disposed, had little opinion of his judgment or capacity. 
*' Lord Bute," he said, " though a very honourable man, 
a man who meant well, a man who had his blood full of 
prerogative, was a theoretical statesman, a book minister, 
and thought the country could be governed by the influence 
of the Crown alone." f He "took down too fast without 
building up something new." Chatham used to maintain 
that he had " ruined the King and the Kingdom." 

He was religious and generous, though he had a passion 
for intrigue. Of this his long correspondence with Shel- 
burne on the subject of Fox in 1762-3 is a curious example. 

Shelbume, who had known him intimately and had 
served in his government, has perhaps written the best 
appreciation of his character. He was, he says, " proud, 
aristocratical, pompous, imposing, with a great deal of 
superficial knowledge, such as is commonly to be met with 
in France and Scotland, chiefly upon matters of Natural 
Philosophy, Mines, Fossils, a smattering of Mechanicks, 
a little Metaphysicks, and a very false taste in everything. 
Added to this he had a gloomy sort of madness which had 
made him affect living alone, particularly in Scotland, where 
he resided some years in the Isle of Bute with as much pomp 
and as nmch uncomf ortableness in his little domestick circle 
as if he had been King of the Island, Lady Bute a forlorn 
queen, and his children slaves of a despotick tyrant. He 
read a great deal, but it was chiefly out of the waybooks of 
Science and pompous Poetry. Lucan was his favourite 
poet among the ancients, and Queen Elizabeth's Earl of 
Essex his favourite author and object of imitation. He 
* Waldegrave, 38. f Jennings, 121. 



126 BUTE 

admired his letters and had them almost by heart. He 
excelled most in writing, of which he appeared to have a 
great habit. He was insolent and cowardly, at least the 
greatest political coward I ever knew. He was rash and 
timid, accustomed to ask advice of different persons, but 
had not sense and sagacity to distinguish and digest, with 
a perpetual apprehension of being governed, which made 
him, when he followed any advice, always add something 
of his own in point of matter or manner, which sometimes 
took away the little good which was in it or changed the 
whole nature of it. He was always upon stilts, never 
natural except now and then upon the subject of women. 
He felt all the pleasure of power to consist either in punish- 
ing or astonishing. He was ready to abandon his nearest 
friend if attacked, or to throw any blame off his own 
shoulders. He could be pleasant in company when he 
let, and did not want for some good points, so much as for 
resolution and knowledge of the world to bring them into 
action. He excelled as far as I could observe in managing 
the interior of a Court, and had an abundant share of art 
and hypocrisy."* 

Some of these blasting criticisms are probably too 
severe. They were written at a time when Bute was looked 
upon as an arch-plotter of Machiavellian subtlety. It is 
known now that he was merely an ambitious, rather vain 
and shallow Scotsman, of some culture and considerable 
leisure, who coveted place and fortune, and who deceived 
himself into thinking that he could begin to learn the 
business of politics at forty-eight, and that directing the 
small court of the Princess Dowager had taught him 
to control the British Empire. He paid heavily enough for 
his mistakes, for they pursued him to the end of his life ; and 
through a long and embittered old age he always regretted 
the distant days of his transitory power. 

" Nessun maggior dolore 
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
Nella miser ia." 

* Fitzmaurice, i. 139-141. 



EARLY LIFE 127 



II.— NORTH 

The Hon. Frederick North, commonly called Lord North 
and afterwards second Earl of Guilford, was bom on April 12, 
1732, the eldest son of Francis, third Lord Guilford, and of 
Lady Lucy Montagu, daughter of George, Earl of Halifax. 
His father was the grandson of the celebrated Lord Keeper 
North, and had succeeded to the peerage in 1729, shortly 
after his marriage. It was several years before he had any 
issue and, as both he and his wife had been very intimate 
with Frederick, Prince of Wales, in whose household he was 
a Lord of the Bedchamber, there was some belief, in view 
of Frederick North's remarkable resemblance to George III., 
that he owed more to his Royal Highness than his 
Christain name. 

The Norths were an ancient family originally settled 
in Cambridge and subsequently in Oxfordshire. They had 
been distinguished alike in the senate, the study and the 
field, and the Lives of three of them form a classic of the 
English language. But the third Lord Guilford was not 
remarkable for character. George II. called him " a very 
good, poor creature, but a very weak man."* For a short 
time he was Governor to the young Prince George, and 
during all his long life he retained considerable influence 
with him. Frederick North, his son, was only a few years 
older than the prince, and as boys the two were a good deal 
together and were close friends. 

North was first sent to Eton, where he attained some 
distinction. He was nicknamed Blubbery North, though 
whether from his fat or his tears is not quite clear. He 
became an elegant if not a profound scholar, and had some 
turn for verses. He went on to Trinity College, Oxford, 
took his degree in 1750, and then made the grand tour on 
the Continent, staying for a time at Leipsic. When he 
came home he had the reputation of knowing French, 
German and Italian, in those days a rare combination. 

In 1751 the Prince of Wales died, and next year Lord 
* Hervey, ii. 435. 



128 NORTH 

Guilford was raised to an earldom and his son took the 
courtesy title of Lord North, an old barony to which his 
father had succeeded. Two years later he was elected 
member for Banbury, a pocket borough of his family. He 
quickly made his name in the House of Commons, not 
less for industry and ability than for wit and good temper. 
Horace Walpole writes to Montagu in 1754: " I hear of 
nothing but the parts and merits of Lord North,''* and 
George Grenville said about the same time: "North is a 
man of great promise and high qualifications, and if he 
does not relax in his political pursuits is very likely to be 
Prime Minister. "f 

In 1756 North married Anne, daughter and co-heiress of 
George Speke of White Lackington, by whom he had a 
numerous and singularly united family. His domestic life 
was one of the most attractive traits in his career, and his 
home seems to have been a pattern of happiness and virtue. 

In 1759 he was appointed a Junior Lord of the Treasury 
by the influence of the Duke of Newcastle, to whom he 
was distantly related, and he remained in that position until 
Lord Rockingham came into power six years later. In that 
ministry North refused to serve. In 1766, however. Lord 
Chatham made him joint Paymaster-General, and in March, 
1767, he was offered the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer 
by Grafton, This high position, with equal modesty and 
good feeling, he declined. In his letter to Grafton he says : 

" My Lord, 

" As I returned from your Grace's this evening a 
reflection suggested itself to me, which I think I ought to 
communicate to you. What has passed this evening be- 
tween your Grace and me need not be known to any but 
his Majesty and ourselves. But if I wait on the King at 
the Queen's house to-morrow, the negotiation will become 
public. It will soon be known that I have declined the 
offer, and such a report will, I am afraid, be an additional 
weakness to Government. I have the highest sense of 
gratitude both for the honor of being thought by his 
* H. Walpole, " Letters," ii. 405. f Albemarle, i. 344. 



AT THE EXCHEQUER 129 

Majesty worthy of so great an employment, and for the very 
gracious manner in which the offer is intended to be made. 
But, as my resolution is fixed upon a thorough conviction 
that my acceptance of the seals will not be of any real 
service to the King, I should think it advisable that they 
should not be publickly offered to me, or indeed to anybody 
else, before it is certain that they will be accepted. 

" I submit this consideration to your Grace out of a 
sincere goodwill to Government, and a grateful sense of 
my duty to the King. If it should appear of any weight 
to his Majesty or your Grace, I hope to have a line from 
you before half an hour after eleven o'clock to-morrow 
morning. If I hear nothing from you before that time, I 
will then set out for the Queen's house, in obedience to His 
Majesty's commands delivered to me this evening. 
" I am with the greatest respect, my lord, 
" Your Grace's most faithful 
" humble servant, 

" North."* 

Nine months later, however, on Townshend's death, 
North accepted the same place with the lead of the House 
of Commons. He had now found his real vocation, for he 
was an active and sensible man of business, lucid in ex- 
planation and genial and popular with his fellow-members. 
Rigby, writing to the Duke of Bedford early in 1769, says: 
" Lord North opened his Budget in the Committee of Ways 
and Means; and in the four and twenty years that I have 
sat in Parliament ... I verily think I have never known 
any of his predecessors acquit themselves so much to the 
satisfaction of the House. "t 

By this time Chatham had left the ministry, and Grafton, 
his successor, was getting into deeper and deeper diffi- 
culties. In the winter of 1769 he was attacked by his old 
chief, and in January 1770 he informed the King that 
he must resign. This the King kept secret, for he was 
aware that both Chatham and Rockingham expected to 
be sent for, while he had determined himself to put in 
* Grafton, 123. t Bedford, iii. 408. 



130 NOKTH 

Lord Nortli. North was a moral man after the King*s 
own heart; he had been his early friend and companion; 
he was not closely connected with any of the great Whig 
lords; he agreed generally with the King's own political 
views and was usually ready to take his orders, and he was 
exceptionally competent at his work. The King ac- 
cordingly wrote to him on January 23, 1770 : " Lord 
Weymouth and Lord Gower will wait upon you this 
morning to press you in the strongest manner to accept 
the office of First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. 
My mind is more and more strengthened in the rightness 
of the measure which will prevent any other desertion/'* 

North, who had at first demurred, eventually accepted, 
and a few days later he became Prime Minister. His first 
prospects were not encouraging, for he had to repel some 
severe attacks in the House of Commons. There had 
already been divisions of opinion in the Cabinet on the 
subject of the American colonies, and Grafton had found 
himself in a minority. He says in his memoirs: "Lord 
North, become principal minister, brought in the repeal of 
all the port duties, except that on teas : and as I had been 
greatly hurt when I could not carry the point in the 
Cabinet, to have the teas also exempt, it was some satis- 
faction to think that I was no longer in administration nor 
a sharer in a measure so ill-fated and unwise. "f 

The Opposition, however, had been weakened by the 
death of George Grenville and the illness of Chatham. The 
latter again retired into seclusion, and when he emerged 
was more willing to tolerate the government, for he writes 
of North in 1775: " He serves the Crown more successfully 
and more efficiently upon the whole than any other man 
to be found could do."{ 

For a time, then, everything went well. North was 
accommodating with the King and agreeable with the 
House of Commons. Honours were showered upon him. 
He was made Chancellor of Oxford University and Lord 
Warden of the Cinque Ports, while his wife was appointed 

* North, i. 11. t Grafton, 252. 

X Chatham, iv. 332-333. 



PRIME MINISTER 131 

Ranger of Bushey Park and given an excellent house. 
Later on His Majesty made him a very considerable present 
of money, from £20,000 to £30,000, as his financial afiairs 
had become embarrassed.* His official income rose to 
£12,000 a year. In 1772 he received the Garter while he 
still sat in the Commons, and there he had the then unique 
distinction of being " the noble lord in the blue ribbon.'' 

His successes were often due to his popularity and his 
pleasant and easy-going manners. His cheery and placid 
temperament and even his fat and rubicund appearance 
helped him considerably. Ready of access, simple in his 
demeanour, he seemed free from ambition and was yet 
devoted to his duties. The tales of his wit and good- 
humour are numerous. He was very difficult to upset. 
Once, while he was speaking, a dog got into the House of 
Commons and punctuated every remark he made with a 
disconcerting bark. There was a good deal of laughter, 
but the offender was at last driven out. Shortly after- 
wards it found its way back and began to bark again. 
North glanced at it and dryly remarked: " Spoke once.'^f 

He was much inclined to somnolence, or to the appearance 
of sonmolence, on the Treasury bench. On one occasion an 
opponent who was belabouring him with invective was so 
enraged at this that he exclaimed : " Even now, in the midst 
of these perils, the noble Lord is asleep.'" Without opening 
his eyes North said wearily, " I wish to God I was !"f 

During the American war, while making a speech at a 
City dinner. North had announced an advantage that had 
just been gained over " the rebels." Fox, who was pre- 
sent, at once took him to task for alluding in such terms 
to " our fellow-subjects in America." " Very well, then," 
said North, " I will call them ' the gentlemen in opposition 
on the other side of the water.' "| 

On the day that he finally resigned office it was bitterly 
cold and snowing. In consequence of the sudden news 
the House rose unexpectedly early, and many members 
who had not ordered their carriages had to wait for them. 
Lord North, however, had his at the door. He put one or 
* Jesse, " George III.," ii. 252. f Jennings, 132 et seq. 



132 NOETH 

two friends into it, and making a bow to his opponents who 
stood round, he said, " Good- night, gentlemen: it is the first 
time I have known the advantage of being in the secret."* 

The task that North had to tackle when he became First 
Lord of the Treasury was not easy, but at first he did 
pretty well. With Wilkes, with Junius, with the India 
Bill, he managed to deal and on the whole to satisfy the 
country. But the American question was a much more 
knotty problem. His colleagues hesitated as to the line 
to be followed, and when the young Charles Fox stood 
out for a liberal policy North dismissed him in a laconic 
letter: " Sir, His Majesty has thought proper to order a 
new Commission of the Treasury to be made out in which 
I do not perceive your name."t 

When hostilities began in 1775, the mass of public opinion 
was on the side of the administration. But as time went 
on and more and more blood and treasure were expended 
matters changed for the worse. The reverses of the war, 
the further wars with France and Spain, and the resulting 
deficits and taxes, gradually stirred up a serious opposition. 
North saw the danger, and for three years he strove to 
resign, but the King always prevented him. In the mean- 
time North became more alarmed. He was the responsible 
minister, he was the King's friend, and there was a strong 
feeling against their arbitrary rule. He had received 
many favours himself, but he had been sparing in the 
distribution of honours, for he had never attempted to 
increase the peerage on the scale that Pitt did later on. 
In 1781 a government loan, which gave exceptional 
advantages to his supporters, did him no good in the public 
estimation. The difierent sections of the Whigs had at last 
come together, and desertions began from his own side. 

The loss of Minorca brought matters to a crisis. Votes 
of want of confidence were put up, and North saw that 
his position was no longer tenable. In earlier days he had 
made overtures to Chatham, to Shelburne and to others 
to join his Cabinet, but he had been rebuffed. It was now 
too late to compromise, for the Whigs knew their strength. 
* Jennings, 135. f Ihid., 154. 



THE COALITION 133 

Again he importuned the King to allow him to retire. 
This time the King consented, though calling him a 
deserter. With bitter heart-searchings His Majesty then 
turned to the Whigs, and in March, 1782, North was given 
a pension of £4,000 a year and went off in delight. 

Rockingham succeeded, but died three months later, 
and then Shelburne came in. He soon found himself in as 
great difficulties as North had been, though with less 
experience and less backing. Early in the next year he 
in his turn approached North, asking him to join and help 
his government. But North had already pledged his 
word to Fox, and was preparing to return to power as a 
member of a Coalition ministry. 

This is the most difficult part of North's history to 
understand. The first of the Whigs, Fox had been for 
many years North's most virulent opponent. He was 
more disliked by the King than was any other statesman. 
North was the King's friend and the mainstay of the 
Tories. Such a collusion was like mating fire with water, 
and the King made many efforts to get some alternative 
Cabinet. Pitt and North were both urged to become 
Prime Minister. But it was in vain, and at last, when 
Shelburne resigned some weeks later, the seals were handed 
to Portland, while Fox and North became the two Secre- 
taries of State. This unholy alliance the King never 
forgave, and the ministry was doomed at its birth. 

There were at once considerable defections of Whigs 
from Fox and of Tories from North — men who could not 
comprehend or tolerate the abnegation of lifelong principles 
by their trusted leaders. Many of them went over to Pitt, 
who seemed to stand for honesty and patriotism. The 
whole business left a nasty taste in tne mouth of Parliament 
and of England, and the government did not long survive. 
In a few months the defeat of Fox's India Bill in the Lords 
gave the King an excuse; he sent for the seals at midnight 
and dismissed his ministers. It was on this occasion that 
Sir Evan Nepean, one of the under-secretaries, came to 
Lord North's house and said that he must see his lord- 
ship, even though he were in bed. "Then," said Lord 



134 NORTH 

North, " he must see Lady North too/' Nepean came in, 
North told him where to find the seals, and then turned over 
and went tranquilly ofi to sleep.* 

Pitt took office and North returned to opposition. He 
still filled a considerable place in politics, but he was not 
the man he had been. His sight was failing, he was tired, 
and he had lost much of his reputation for consistency. 
Yet he occasionally spoke with his old sense and humour, 
and the House of Commons always welcomed him — but his 
parliamentary career was done. 

In 1790 his father died and he succeeded to the peerage, 
but he had now become almost blind, and he lived in retire- 
ment at Bushey or at Tunbridge Wells. With his family 
his life was quiet and happy, for he was as devoted to them 
as they were to him. To the end he kept up his spirits, 
his cheerful and amusing conversation and his generous 
heart endearing him to a wide circle of friends. In August 
1792 he died, at the age of sixty, leaving several children. 
Their male line, however, has now become extinct, and the 
present peer is descended from Lord North's brother. 

North was a famous figure of the eighteenth century. 
Wraxall thus describes him: " In his person he was of 
the middle size, heavy, large and much inclined to 
corpulency. There appeared in the cast and formation 
of his countenance, nay even in his manner, so strong a 
resemblance to the Royal Family, that it was difficult 
not to perceive it. Like them, he had a fair complexion, 
regular features, light hair, with bushy eyebrows, and grey 
eyes, rather prominent in his head. His face might be 
indeed esteemed a caricature of the King, and those who 
remembered the intimacy which subsisted between Frederic, 
the late Prince of Wales, and the Earl, as well as Countess of 
Guilford, Lord North's Father and Mother, to which 
allusion has already been made, found no difficulty in 
accounting, though perhaps very unjustly, for that 
similarity.' 't North, indeed, was distinctly an ugly man. 
His eyes were large and rolling, and he was very short- 

* Jesse, " Etonians," ii. 277 (sense). Lord Rosebery gives another 
version. "Pitt," 45. f WraxaU, " Memoirs," i. 489-490. 




JV. Dance pinx. 



FREDERICK NORTH 

LORD NORTH 

AFTERWARDS 2nD EARL OF GUILFORD 



T. Burke sc. 



To face page 134 



HIS CHARACTER 135 

sighted. His tongue was too large for his mouth, and he 
had some difficulty in articulation. He spoke in a sing- 
song way and his voice was monotonous, but the drollery 
and good nature of his words redeemed these blemishes, for 
with all his witticisms he rarely said anything unkind. 
" He was powerful, able and fluent in debate, sometimes 
repelling the charges made against him with solid argument, 
but still more frequently ... by the force of wit and 
humour. . . . He possessed a classic mind full of informa- 
tion. It was impossible to experience dullness in his 
society. Even during the last years of his life when nearly 
or totally blind and labouring under many infirmities : yet 
his equanimity of temper never forsook him nor even his 
gaiety and powers of conversation. 

" As a statesman, his enemies charged him with irre- 
solution, but he might rather be taxed with indolence and 
procrastination, than with want of decision. He naturally 
loved to postpone, though when it became necessary to 
resolve, he could abide firmly by his determination. Never 
had any Minister purer hands, nor manifested less rapacity. 
In fact, he amassed no wealth, after an administration of 
twelve years.''* 

Wraxall's opinion is borne out by most of his con- 
temporaries, though the King afterwards called North " a 
man composed entirely of negative qualities, one who for 
the sake of securing present ease would risk any difficulties 
which might threaten the future." 

Burke, a lifelong opponent, said that he was "a, man 
of admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile 
understanding, fitted for all sorts of business; of infinite 
wit and pleasantry, of a delightful temper and with a 
mind most disinterested . . . but he wanted something 
of that vigilance and spirit of command that the time 
required."t Grafton, his old chief, thought him " in private 
life an upright honourable man, and his talents were 
unquestioned; but he neither had the peculiar talent him- 
self of conducting extensive war operations, nor was the 
ability and judgment of his coadjutors sufficient to make 

* Wraxall, " Memoirs," i. 494 et seq. f Burke, Works, ii. 126. 

10 



136 NOETH 

up the deficiency ... he became confused when he was 
agitated by the great scenes of active life."* North has 
been blamed for the loss of the American colonies ; but the 
words that he spoke in his defence after leaving office were 
true. " I found the American War/' he said, " when I 
became minister. I did not create it. It was the war of 
the country, the Parliament and the people. "f 

After North's fall from power. Gibbon dedicated to him 
one of the volumes of his history in the following memor- 
able lines: " Were I ambitious of any other patron than 
the public, I would inscribe this work to a statesman, who, 
in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate adminis- 
tration, had many political opponents, almost without a 
personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power, 
many faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under 
the pressure of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigour of 
his mind, and the felicity of his incomparable temper. 
Lord North will permit me to express the feelings of 
friendship in the language of truth, but even truth and 
friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed the favours 
of the crown. "t 

The unsolved problem in North's character is how he 
prevailed upon himself to join Fox in 1783. It was 
certainly from no wish for power, for several times during 
the negotiations he was himself ofTered the post of Prime 
Minister. He had just had twelve years of office; he was 
weary, and he was not ambitious. But he was much 
under the King's influence: he distrusted Shelburne, with 
whom he thought Fox might otherwise unite; he probably 
believed that without his support no government could 
last long, and that if he stood out his party would suffer; 
and he was naturally easy-going and willing to oblige. 
This combination of reasons perhaps supplies the answer. 
Mr. Lucas thinks that he really feared impeachment, and 
ascribes his motives to " the instinct of self -preservation. "§ 
That his action was due to base, to personal or to factious 
motives no one who considers his career is likely to admit. 

* Grafton, 287, 303. f Jennings, 135. 

X Gibbon, " Eoman Empire," iv. (Preface). § Lucas, ii. 209. 



THE KING'S FRIENDS 137 

He loved a quiet life, but lie bore tlie heavy burden of 
affairs in evil times with patience, with industry and with 
a cheerful soul, without ever having his honour questioned 
or making an enemy. That he allowed a dogged and 
exacting master to bear down his too facile temperament 
was his misfortune — a misfortune that his name has had 
to sustain through all subsequent history. 

Bute and North were essentially the King's men. They 
first mobilized the King's friends, and were the early 
pioneers of his strategy. They had rough ground to break, 
but from the King's point of view they were not unsuccess- 
ful, for they opened the trenches against the Whig citadel, 
and it soon capitulated. The long rule of Pitt and Liverpool 
consolidated their work. 



CHAPTEK VII 
THE OLD WHIGS 

ROCKINGHAM AND SHELBURNE 

In June 1765 Mr. George Grenville resigned the seals 
of office. Though hardly a man of progressive or liberal 
tendencies, he still called himself a Whig. For half a 
century the political fortunes of England had been con- 
trolled by the various sections of that party, and only once 
in those fifty years had a Tory been in power. He was the 
ill-starred Earl of Bute, and he had survived but a twelve- 
month. 

The pendulum was soon to swing the other way. For 
the next two generations the Tories were to reign supreme. 
Some desultory ministries of shattered and divided Whigs 
were, it is true, to break in upon their reign, but these 
ministries between them were to last barely eight years. 
It was the beginning of the end. The sun seemed to be 
setting upon the families of the Revolution. 

During the first half of this period of eclipse the Whig 
party was inspired by two great commoners, Fox and 
Burke. Its two divisions were led by a pair of great lords, 
Rockingham and Shelburne. Of the two peers, one was 
eminent by his moral, the other by his intellectual qualities. 
Separated by the schism of party, they yet pursued the 
same aims. Both, through many years of failing fortunes, 
with constant courage though disappointed hopes, fought 
a losing fight on behalf of their beliefs. V/hen, more than 
sixty years later, the Whigs at last returned to power, the 
principles they had advocated were to be passed into law 
by their not unworthy successors, Grey and Russell. 

138 



EARLY LIFE 139 

L-ROCKINGHAM 

Charles Watson- Wentworth, successively styled Lord 
Higham and Lord Malton, and afterwards second Marquess 
of Rockingham, was bom on March 19, 1730. He was 
the fifth but eldest surviving son of Thomas Watson W^ent- 
worth by Lady Mary Finch, daughter of Daniel, seventh 
Earl of Winchilsea. His father was a grandson of Edward 
Watson, Lord Rockingham, and Lady Anne Wentworth, 
daughter of the great Earl of Strafford. Through her the 
family had acquired vast estates in Yorkshire, and Thomas 
Wentworth was thus rapidly advanced to be a knight of 
the Bath, a baron and an earl, until in 1746 he received a 
marquessate. It was of him (then Lord Malton) that Sir 
Robert Walpole had said: " I suppose we shall soon see our 
friend Malton in opposition, for he has had no promotion 
in the peerage for the last fortnight."* 

Charles Wentworth was educated at Eton. He was of 
an adventurous character and a loyal Whig, for in the 
winter holidays of 1745, when fifteen years old, he rode 
off from Wentworth with a single servant to join the Duke 
of Cumberland's forces against the young Pretender. His 
letter of apology to his mother on this occasion has been 
preserved. He writes from Carlisle: 

" Dear Madam, 

" When I think of the concern I have given you by 
my wild expedition, and how my whole life, quite from my 
infancy, has afforded you only a continued series of afflic- 
tions, it grieves me excessively that I did not think of the 
concern I was going to give you and my father before such 
an undertaking; but the desire I had of serving my King 
and country as much as lay in my power, did not give me 
time to think of the undutifulness of the action. As my 
father has been so kind as entirely to forgive my breach of 
duty, I hope I may, and shall have your forgiveness, which 
will render me quite happy. 

" I am, Madam, 

" Your very dutiful son, 

" HiGHAM.'t 
* Albemarle, i. 138. j Ihid., i. 139. 



140 EOCKINGHAM 

He went on from Eton to St. John's College, Cambridge, 
and then travelled in Italy where, according to Wraxall, 
some imprudent gallantries damaged an already weak 
constitution. 

In 1750, when he was only twenty, his father died, and 
he succeeded to all his honours. Shortly afterwards he 
was appointed lord-lieutenant of the North and West 
Eidings of Yorkshire and made a Lord of the Bedchamber 
to the King. The year after he came of age he married 
Mary, daughter of Thomas Liddell of Badsworth, and in 
1760, before he had taken any leading part in politics, he 
was created a Knight of the Garter, an honour which, 
according to the Duke of Newcastle, he had solicited from 
the King. Owing to his position and wealth he was already 
regarded as one of the most prominent Whigs, and on the 
Dulce of Devonshire's name being struck off the Privy 
Council by George III., Eockingham resigned his office at 
Court and a few weeks later was dismissed in company 
with the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton, from his lord- 
lieutenancy. He gives an account of this transaction in 
a letter to his old general, the Duke of Cumberland. 

<( (^j-o November 3, 1762. 

" After the repeated instances of your Eoyal 
Highness's condescension towards me, I hope it will not 
appear presumption in me to take the liberty to inform 
your Eoyal Highness of the motives and manner of my 
conduct. 

" The late treatment of the Duke of Devonshire seemed 
to me, in the strongest light, fully to explain the intention 
and the tendency of all the domestic arrangements. I, 
therefore, had the honour of an audience of his Majesty on 
Wednesday morning, wherein I humbly informed his 
Majesty, that it was with great concern that I saw the 
tendency of the counsels, which now had weight with him : 
that this event fully showed the determination that those 
persons who had hitherto been always the most steadily 
attached to his Eoyal predecessors, and who had hitherto 
deservedly had the greatest weight in this country, were 



HIS FIRST MINISTRY 141 

now driven out of any share in the government in this 
country, and marked out rather as objects of his Majesty's 
displeasure than of his favour: that the alarm was general 
among his Majesty's most affectionate subjects, and that it 
appeared to me in this light — it might be thought, if I 
continued in office, that I either had not the sentiments 
which I declared, or that I disguised them, and acted a part 
which I disclaimed. 

" His Majesty's answer was short; saying that he did 
not desire any person should continue in his service any 
longer than it was agreeable to him/'* 

Rockingham was thus definitely in opposition, and he 
so remained during the dreary domination of Bute and 
George Grenville. The King, when he had succeeded 
in thoroughly discrediting the latter, made attempts to 
induce Pitt and others to form a government. But these 
failed, and he was compelled to resort to the Old Whigs, 
whom he had determined never again to employ. In June 
1765 a meeting of the Whig magnates was held, and it 
was then agreed that Rockingham should be their leader. 
Devonshire had just died, Newcastle was very old and 
Portland was too young. Rockingham had already been 
approached, but he was neither strong, ambitious nor 
self-confident, and had not been at all desirous of coming 
forward. The King was equally surprised. " I thought," 
he said, " that I had not two men in my bedchamber of 
less parts than Lord Rockingham."")* Office, however, was 
now thrust upon him. He became First Lord of the 
Treasury and took for his private secretary Edmund 
Burke. In forming his administration he did his best to 
enlist Pitt and Shelburne, who were heterodox Whigs, but 
they refused to help. Their turn was to come later, but 
their present defection crippled Rockingham. 

In October the Duke of Cumberland died. He had been 
a brake upon the headstrong and disingenuous vagaries 
of the King, and a warm supporter of the Whigs, and his 

* Albemarle, i. 142-143. 

t H. Walpole, " George III.," i. 291. 



142 EOCKINGHAM 

loss to tliem was serious. Their friends diminished and 
their enemies increased. Throughout the winter matters 
went badly. The Cabinet was disunited. They repealed 
the American Stamp Act, but the effort shook them, and 
Rockingham became daily more and more disgusted at the 
obstacles he met with at Court. The King, and the divisions 
in his own party, damaged him as much as did his official 
opponents. Again he tried to bring in Pitt, but again 
without success. His government had been called " a 
" lute-string administration which could not last,"* and the 
prophecy was to come true. Grafton now left it, and it 
began to crumble. During the early summer of 1766 the 
King continued to intrigue against his ministers, and as 
soon as he had arranged with Pitt to take their place he 
dismissed them early in August. 

Rockingham acted with forbearance and dignity. Like 
the Roman poet's hero, in arduous affairs he kept an 
equal mind. In a year of office he had done much, 
and his work was not forgotten. Before he left London a 
deputation of merchants thanked him for his exertions 
in favour of the civil and commercial interest of the kingdom, 
and on his progress through Yorkshire he received similar 
addresses in half a dozen of the principal towns. 

A few of his friends remained on for a short time in the 
new ministry, though Chatham was strongly opposed to 
the official Whig connection. Ill-health, however, soon 
withdrew the latter from politics, and within, a year 
Grafton, on whom his place had devolved, was asking 
Rockingham to support the tottering government. 
Although this proposition did not materialize, it gave 
Rockingham an opportunity of speaking his mind to the 
King. " I said," he writes, " that when I had the honour 
of being in his Majesty's service the measures of Adminis- 
tration were thwarted and obstructed by men in office, 
acting like a corps ; that I flattered myself it was not entirely 
with his Majesty's inclination and I would assure him 
that it was very detrimental to his service."! 

Rockingham's main object now was to regain parlia- 
* Macaulay, vii. 254. | Albemarle, ii. 53. 



HIS SECOND MINISTRY 143 

mentary liberty and to support the cause of the American 
colonies. With this end in view he spoke to the limited 
extent that he was able, he disciplined his party, and he 
encouraged his friends. In 1769 Chatham recovered his 
health, emerged from his retirement, and forming an alliance 
with Rockingham, thus restored to the Opposition some 
unity. Grafton's ministry soon fell, and Lord North came 
into office. To the whole series of ministerial measures 
for colonial coercion Rockingham continued to offer a 
strenuous resistance. He spoke, he wrote, he negotiated. 
In many of his letters can be seen the bold hand of Burke, 
whose influence on his mind was strong. 

In 1775 the party was inspired by the adhesion of Charles 
Fox. Three years later Chatham died, and Rockingham 
was approached as to forming a government, though 
without result. Again in 1780 Lord North tried to induce 
him to join his Cabinet, but Rockingham would not com- 
promise. During all this time the American War had 
gone from bad to worse. At last came the end. North 
resigned, and Rockingham, after sixteen years in opposi- 
tion, was recalled to the head of affairs. But his health 
had now given way, and he knew that to accept office 
meant only holding it for a little while. Yet he did not 
hesitate or repine. There were long negotiations before 
the King could make up his mind to a purely Whig 
administration, but eventually he was obliged to yield; 
and on March 27, 1782, Rockingham kissed hands for the 
second time, with Shelburne, Portland, Fox and Burke 
as his colleagues. 

The ministers were at once plunged into the thick of 
official business, and Rockingham's physical strength 
soon began to fail. Peace, Ireland, Catholic relief, 
parliamentary reform and national economy claimed his 
care. Thurlow said that Rockingham " was bringing 
things to a pass where either his head or the King's must 
go in order to settle which of them is to govern the 
country." * The reduction of expenses and the suppression 
of political sinecures was one of his first projects, and almost 

* May, i. 52. 



144 EOCKINGHAM 

his last letter to the King is on this subject. After as- 
suring his Majesty that the royal household will not be in 
any way affected, he proceeds: " In this plan nothing is 
taken away, except those places which may answer the 
purposes of us, or of those who hereafter may be your 
Majesty's ministers, and which may serve to carry points 
and support interests of our own and of theirs, and not of 
yours. 

" I have many friends, and your Majesty will easily 
believe that at this time when you honour me with your 
gracious attention to my recommendation, it would be the 
pleasantest thing in the world to me to be the channel of 
your Majesty's favour to twenty or thirty places of ease 
and emolument for those friends. The denying myself that 
satisfaction has been the greatest act of self-denial of my 
whole life. . . . My situation in the country, my time of 
life, my state of health, 1 hope the known character I 
bear, will I trust not suffer your Majesty to conceive that 
the idea of popularity would so far affect my judgment 
as to incline me to a measure which would prejudice or 
endanger the decent or necessary means of a well-ordered 
Government."* 

It was the first real effort to deal with the evil of parlia- 
mentary corruption, and it meant the end of bribery. 
But Rockingham had no time to effect his reforms. He was 
already suffering from water on the chest, and influenza 
now ensued. On June 2 he made his last appearance 
in the House of Lords, and shortly afterwards he left his 
house in Grosvenor Square and retired to Roehampton, 
where he was confined to his room. Throughout the month 
he became weaker, and on July 1 he died, his death being as 
much of a surprise as it was a calamity to the country, 
for it meant the complete collapse of a united Whig 
party. All his honours became extinct, as he had left 
no issue, and his estates passed to his eldest sister's son, 
Lord Fitzwilliam. Rockingham had possessed a unique 
distinction. Though he had twice led a government, and 
though his tenure of office was short, only fifteen months 
* Albemarle, ii. 478-480. 



/. lieynal'li x>h->j 




CHARLES WATSON-WENTWORTH 

2nd MAEQUESS of ROCKINGHAM 



To face page \ii 



HIS CHARACTER 145 

in all, he had. never held any other political place than 
that of First Lord of the Treasury. 

In appearance Rockingham was a man of fine figure, 
tall, spare, dark and sallow, with the somewhat sad 
expression of an invalid. Most of his pleasures lay in the 
country, for he was a great patron of the turf and loved 
gaming. As a young man he once ran a match from 
Norwich to London between five geese and five turkeys.* 

As to his character and abilities there is little doubt. 
The former was of the highest, the latter only moderate. 
He laboured under the heavy handicap of being born to 
high rank and great wealth, with poor health and a retiring 
spirit. In debate he was diffident, awkward and nervous. 
In company he was shy and lacked many of the outward 
graces. But he was an honest, thoughtful and dignified 
man, with a clear intellect, a cool temper, kind manners and 
a generous heart. A constant and convinced Whig, he had 
the same confidence in his own principles which he strove 
to inspire in others. An innate want of energy and 
determination alone marred his success. 

Lord Albemarle, his biographer, says of his first ad- 
ministration: "In no one year between the Revolution 
and the Reform Bill were so many immunities gained 
for the people or ... so many breaches in the Constitu- 
tion repaired. . . . Had George III. possessed common 
sincerity, Lord Rockingham's efforts to preserve the 
American Colonies would probably have been effectual. "'f 
As to his conduct of his party, Chatham thought " that the 
Rockinghams and Cavendishes and such ancient Whig 
families who had ever been true to their principles and 
consistent in their conduct ought to take the lead.'' Lord 
Stanhope, however, calls him " timid, feeble and indecisive, 
though with the best intentions;" and Junius, speaking of 
his " mild but determined integrity," admits a degree of 
' debility ' in his virtue. "J 

Whatever may be the truth, he has secured two brilliant 
panegyrics. He was, says Macaulay, " A man of splendid 

* H. Walpole, " Letters," iii. 38. f Albemarle, i. 141, 142. 
J Junius, i. 94, 101. 



146 ROCKINGHAM 

fortune, excellent sense and stainless character. He was 
indeed nervous to such a degree that to the very close of his 
life he never rose without great reluctance to address the 
House of Lords. But though not a great orator he had in a 
high degree some of the qualities of a statesman. He 
chose his friends well, and he had in an extraordinary degree 
the art of attaching them to him by ties of the most 
honourable kind.''* 

Burke, perhaps a prejudiced critic, wrote his epitaph, 
some lines of which deserve to be transcribed. They are 
engraved beneath his statue in Wentworth Park. 

" CHARLES, MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM. 

" A man wortliy to be held in remembrance, because lie did not live 
for himself. His abilities, industry and influence were employed 
without interruption to the last hour of his life, to give stability to the 
liberties of his country, security to its landed property, increase to its 
commerce, independence to its public councils, and concord to its empire. 
These were his ends. For the attainment of these ends his policy con- 
sisted in sincerity, fidelity, directness and constancy. His virtues were 
his arts. In opposition, he respected the principles of Government; 
in Administration, he provided for the liberties of the people. He 
employed his moment of power in realizing everything which he had 
proposed in a popular situation — the distinguishing mark of his public 
conduct. Reserved in profession, sure in performance, he laid the 
foundation of a solid confidence, "f 

Rockingham was neither a great statesman nor leader, 
but he was undoubtedly a great instrument in the hands 
of that Providence that watches over the British Con- 
stitution. To his reforms, and especially to his abolition 
of many of the numerous places and pensions in the gift 
of the King, may largely be ascribed the gradual trans- 
ference of the power of the Crown and of its control over 
Parliament into the hands of ministers, while from the date 
of his death it may be said that the bribery of members of 
Parliament and royal interference in the votes of the House 
of Commons virtually ceased. 

* Macaulay, vii. 253. f Albemarle, ii. 486 et seq. 



EAKLY LIFE 147 



II.— SHELBURNE 

William Fitzmaiirice, afterwards second Earl of Shel- 
burne and first Marquess of Lansdowne, was born in Dublin 
on May 20, 1737. His father, the Hon. John Fitzmaurice, 
was a younger son of Thomas, first Earl and twenty-first 
feudal lord of Kerry. His mother, Mary Fitzmaurice 
of Gallane, was a cousin-german of his father's. The 
Fitzmaurices, descended from an almost fabulous Italian 
ancestor in the ninth century, were one of the most ancient 
families in Ireland and possessed vast tracts of land in the 
south of that kingdom. Thomas, Earl of Kerry, had added 
to his patrimony by marrying Anne, only daughter of the 
famous Sir William Petty, Physician- General to the Army 
in Cromwell's time and subsequently Surveyor- General 
of Ireland, in which capacity he had amassed an immense 
fortune. This fortune, by the failure of heirs male, de- 
volved in 1751 on John Fitzmaurice, who, taking the name 
of Petty, was then raised to the peerage, made Earl of 
Shelburne and later on given an English barony. His son 
then took the courtesy title of Lord Fitzmaurice. 

William Fitzmaurice spent his earlier years at his grand- 
father's home in county Kerry, where he led a rough life 
and received little education. With his change of prospects, 
however, he was sent to Christ Church, Oxford, and there 
had some opportunity of expanding his intelligence. At 
the age of twenty he entered the Foot Guards, with whom 
he served in the expedition to Rochefort and afterwards 
at Minden under Lord Granby. Here he distinguished 
himself remarkably and for his gallantry was promoted 
colonel and made an aide-de-camp to the King. He was 
also elected to the House of Commons, but his father dying 
in May 1761 he never took his seat, but entered the House 
of Lords direct. By his wealth and his military reputation 
he was marked out for advancement and almost imme- 
diately he came into touch with Lord Bute, who used him 
as a go-between in some of his abortive negotiations with 
Henry Fox and also sold him his house in Berkeley Square. 



148 SHELBURNE 

Shelburne showed ability and made some good speeches 
in the House of Lords, and on George Grenville's coming 
into office, he was appointed, by Bute's influence. President 
of the Board of Trade. He joined the ministry in the 
spring of 1763, when he was just twenty-six years old. 
He was next concerned in the negotiations with the Bedford 
Whigs and with Pitt, but did not succeed in enlisting their 
support. In consequence, after barely five months of 
office, he resigned his place. Towards the end of the year 
he spoke against the government on the Wilkes question, 
and was then dismissed from his Court appointment. He 
had thus alienated the King, Fox and Bute, though he 
still remained a friend of Pitt's. He now retired for a time 
to Bowood, his home in Wiltshire, where he occupied him- 
self with beautifying the grounds, collecting a library 
and entertaining celebrities in the world of literature and 
art. Johnson, Reynolds, Bentham, Priestley, Hume and 
Goldsmith were among his friends, and he was able to 
develop his remarkable talents and increase his attainments 
in their society. 

In 1765 he married Lady Sophia Carteret, daughter of 
John, Earl Granville, Walpole's old opponent. By her 
he had a single son. In the same year Rockingham came 
into office and offered Shelburne his former place at the 
Board of Trade. But Shelburne refused to join the Whig 
government, and his friend Barre took the same line. In 
the next year, however, on Chatham forming a ministry, 
Shelburne became Secretary of State for the Southern 
Department, a post which then included American and 
Indian affairs and was one of the most important in 
the Cabinet. He was among Chatham's principal fol- 
lowers, and when a few months later illness drove his 
great leader to the privacy of Bath, Shelburne's position 
was not a little affected. He did not agree particularly 
well with Grafton, who wished to reduce the scope of his 
department, while the King and the Princess Dowager 
remembered and resented his conduct in the Wilkes affair. 
His management of his office was not universally approved, 
and he was subjected to a good deal of criticism. Burke, 



HIS UNPOPULARITY 149 

writing in 1768, calls him " as adverse and as much disliked 
as ever."* 

In the autumn of 1768 Shelburne, who was a true Whig, 
opposed the policy of applying force to the American 
colonies, and Grafton then determined to get rid of him. 
This Shelburne anticipated by resigning on October 19. 
He at once became the target of the pressmen. It was 
said of him: " Before he was an ensign he thought himself 
fit to be a general, and to be a leading minister before he 
ever saw a public office." f His negotiations and intrigues, 
as they were then considered, had done him harm, and it 
was at this time that the nickname of " Malagrida," a 
notorious Jesuit of Portugal, was first given him. How- 
ever undeservedly, he had certainly by now acquired a re- 
putation for insincerity which adhered to him for most of 
his political career. 

On the fall of Grafton early in 1770, the Whigs in 
opposition were for a short time united against North, the 
King's long-wished-for and heaven-born minister. But 
their counsels soon became divided. Some seceded to the 
King's friends, some were for moderate and some for ex- 
treme measures, and the party was broken up between 
Eockingham, Chatham and Bedford. 

Early in 1771 Shelburne lost his wife, a young and 
attractive woman. He felt her death deeply, and went 
abroad for some months to France and Italy. After his 
return he resumed his work against the government, 
devoting time, money and industry to this object. But 
lack of unison still prevented the Opposition from achieving 
any practical results. 

On Chatham's death in 1778 Shelburne succeeded to the 
leadership of his small following, for his abilities were 
undoubted and his position considerable. A year later 
he married as his second wife Lady Louisa Fitzpatrick, 
daughter of John, Earl of Upper Ossory, a countryman of 
his own. He was still regarded with doubt and dislike by 
many. His extreme views on American independence, his 
sympathy with the mob in the Gordon Riots, his alternate 

* Burke, Corresp., i, 159. f Fitzmaurice, ii. 167. 



150 SHELBURNE 

support and opposition to Rockingliam, and his ambiguous 
speeches in Parliament, combined to make him a popular 
subject for criticism and mistrust. Nevertheless, his rank, 
his wealth and his many accomplishments could not be 
ignored; and though the Whigs might not care to serve 
under his command, they were ready enough to include 
him in their ranks. 

In 1782 North resigned. The King, who was threatened 
with Rockingham, sent first for Shelburne, hoping thereby 
to avoid the official Whigs. But Shelburne knew that 
he could not form a ministry, and that Rockingham 
alone was the man. He so informed the King, saying to 
Rockingham: " My Lord, you could stand without me but 
I could not without you."* Grafton, who was no particular 
friend of Shelburne's, admits that in this matter he acted 
with honour and credit. Rockingham accordingly accepted 
the Treasury, and Shelburne, who represented the King, 
again became Secretary of State, his department including 
Irish and American matters.f Charles Fox, the son of 
Shelburne's old enemy, was the other Secretary, and was 
responsible for French and foreign affairs. The first 
business of the new government was the conclusion of 
peace with the United States and with France. Quarrels 
at once arose between the two ministers as to whose depart- 
m^ent was chiefly concerned and whose should be the 
directing voice. Mutual antipathy increased their dis- 
sensions. On July 1 Rockingham died. The King, 
anxious to have what he called a Broad Bottom administra- 
tion, then wrote to Shelburne as follows: 

" Lord Shelburne must remember that when in March 
I was obliged to change my ministry, I called upon him to 
form a new one, and proposed his taking the employment 
of First Lord of the Treasury, which he declined, to ac- 
commodate Lord Rockingham. The vacancy of that 
office makes me return to my original idea, and offer it to 
him on the present occasion, and with the fullest political 
confidence; indeed he has had an ample sample of it, by 
* Fitzmaurice, iii. 131. t May, i. 53. 



rit'^^A&'%5.Vi,>_, 




T. Gainsborough pinx. 



william petty fitzmatjrice 

2nd EAEL of SHELBURNE 

afterwards marquess of lansdowne 



F. Bartolozzi sc. 



To face page 150 



PRIME MINISTER 151 

my conduct towards him since his return to my service. I 
desire he will therefore see the Chancellor, the Duke of 
Grafton and others, either m or out of office, and collect 
their opinions fully, that he may be able to state something 
to me on Wednesday. He is at liberty to mention my 
intentions with regard to him, and to set forward in forming 
a plan for my inspection. The letter I wrote this morning 
and the conversations I have held with him previous to it, 
are the fullest instructions I can give on the subject. 

" WiNDSOE, July 1, 1782." ^•-^• 

This appointment gave the deepest umbrage to Fox 
and to some of the Rockingham Whigs. They regarded 
Shelburne as an interloper and assailed him on all sides, 
Burke calling him " a Borgia, a Catiline and a serpent with 
two heads." t But only a few of his colleagues resigned, 
and Shelburne was able to complete his administration. 
It was not strong, for he had no considerable party to 
support him, but it possessed the invaluable help of 
William Pitt, who now first took office as Chancellor of the 
Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Thurlow 
and Grafton also remained in the Cabinet. 

The work before the ministers was still eminently un- 
popular. They had undertaken to finish an unsuccess- 
ful war, to reform the expenditure and to limit the 
number of political places and pensions. With some 
difficulty the negotiations for peace were carried through, 
but they afforded the Tories and the discontented Whigs 
plenty of opportunities for criticism, of which they did not 
hesitate to avail themselves. Among other attacks it was 
freely insinuated that Shelburne was pro-American and 
pro-Erench, and that he was speculating financially on the 
peace — suggestions untrue enough, but not calculated to 
promote his interests. The proposals for the reduction 
of expenses annoyed both the King and the politicians. 
Thurlow, the Chancellor, played a double game, and Grafton, 
who had always disliked Shelburne suice he had been 
supplanted in Lord Chatham's favour, was a dubious ally. 

* Fitzmaurice, iii. 222. f lUd., iii. 235. 

11 



152 SHELBUENE 

Early in 1783 the preliminaries of peace came on for 
discussion. Slielburne was well aware of Ms weakness in 
Parliament. He had endeavoured to enlist Fox's support 
and had also sounded North, but the two had already come 
to an agreement between themselves. Grafton took the 
opportunity of resigning the Privy Seal, while an adverse 
vote in the House of Commons gave the ministers a 
severe blow. Nevertheless, there were hopes of an ar- 
rangement, when, on February 24, Shelburne unexpectedly 
handed in his resignation. He was convinced himself and 
he was probably right in thinking that the King had tricked 
him. " George III.," he used to say, " had one art beyond 
any man he had ever known, for that by the familiarity of 
his intercourse he obtained your confidence, procured from 
you your opinion of different public characters, and then 
availed himself of this knowledge to sow dissension.''* 

For a period of several weeks the country remained 
without a proper government, though Shelburne and his 
colleagues carried on the public business to the best of 
their ability. Then, early in April, the Coalition ministry 
emerged, made up of Portland, Fox, North and Cavendish, 
and destined itself to survive but a few months. Within 
the year it had disappeared and Pitt had formed the famous 
administration which was to develop into a Tory hegemony 
of nearly half a century. Shelburne, who had gone abroad, 
hastened home, but he was not asked to join the new 
Cabinet. It was clear to everyone that his abilities could 
not outweigh the hostility and want of confidence that 
surrounded him. The view of Pitt, who had been most 
loyal to his leader, was that the " influence of prejudice '' 
prevented his applying to Shelburne, and also that " Shel- 
burne's known principle was to be absolute ... to absorb 
all power."! In this opinion Kose and Dundas, two of 
Pitt's most intimate friends, both concurred. 

Pitt, however, did not forget that Shelburne had been 

his father's friend and his own chief. In 1784 he offered 

him a marquessate, with the promise of a dukedom should 

that dignity ever again be conferred outside the Koyal 

* Fitzmaurice, iii. 363. f Ihid., iii. 412. 



LATER LIFE 153 

Family. This Shelburne accepted, taking tlie title of 
Marquess of Lansdowne. He was already a Knight of the 
Garter, and ov/ing to his early promotion had become 
almost the senior general in the Army. He now resumed 
his interests in the country, where he concerned himself 
with the condition of the poor, with agriculture and with 
the management of his estates. To the principles of Free 
Trade and parliamentary reform he adhered, and he re- 
mained an ardent Whig throughout the French Revolution, 
never deviating from his belief in political liberty. Latterly 
he became estranged from Pitt, first on Indian matters— 
for he strongly supported Warren Hastings — and subse- 
quently on the coercive measures adopted in Great Britain 
and Ireland in the last decade of the century. These views 
eventually brought him again into political alliance with 
Fox, though the alliance never developed into friendship. 

In 1789 he lost his second wife, from whom the present 
Lord Lansdowne is descended. Thenceforward he lived 
mostly at Bowood, occupied with architecture, books, the 
fine arts and gardening, surrounded by friends, a generous 
host and an instructive philosopher. His view of himself 
at this time he gave in a speech in the House of Lords — ■ 
perhaps the best he ever made. " The fact is," he said, 
" that throughout my life I have stood aloof from parties. 
It constitutes my pride and my principle to belong to no 
faction, but to approve every measure on its own ground 
free from all connection. Such is my political creed."* 
Dr. Johnson, not always a sound critic, took an emphati- 
cally different view. Boswell had asked if Shelburne was 
not a factious man. " Oh yes, Sir," replied Johnson, " as 
factious a fellow as could be found; one who was for sacking 
us all into the mob !" " How then. Sir," said Boswell, 
" did he get into favour with the King ?" " Because, 
Sir," said Johnson, " I suppose he promised the King to do 
whatever the King pleased, "f 

Shelburne maintained his faculties and interests for 
many years, and died in May 1805 at the age of sixty- 
eight. Had he lived another year he might well have 
* Fitzmaurice, iii. 433. f Boswell, v. 174. 



154 SHELBURNE 

returned to the highest office, for he was by far the most able 
survivor of the old Whigs. Several of his descendants have 
risen to the most eminent positions in the State, and one at 
least is said to have refused the dukedom promised to his 
ancestor. 

In appearance Shelburne was handsome, somewhat 
resembling the Bourbons, hale and high-complexioned, with 
a bluff, hearty expression. Although his early educa- 
tion had been neglected, he had largely supplied this de- 
ficiency in later life, and his attainments and knowledge of 
books and of foreign countries were exceptional. Wraxall 
says: " In his person, manners and address the Earl of 
Shelburne wanted no external quality requisite to captivate 
or conciliate mankind. Affable, polite, communicativej 
and courting popularity, he drew round him a number of 
followers or adherents. His personal courage was indis- 
putable. Splendid and hospitable at his table, he equally 
delighted his guests by the charms of his conversation and 
society. In his magnificent library, one of the finest of its 
kind in England, he could appear as a philosopher and a 
man of letters. With such various endowments of mind, 
sustained by rank and fortune, he necessarily excited 
universal consideration, and seemed to be pointed out by 
nature for the first Employments. But the confidence 
which his moral character inspired did not equal the 
reputation of his abilities. His adversaries accused him 
of systematic duplicity and insincerity."* 

As an orator he held the highest rank, being commonly re- 
garded as second only to Chatham. But his speeches were 
often ambiguous and obscure, and he tended to repetition. 

The Rolliad touches on some of these defects: 

" Lost and obscur'd in Bowood's humble bow'r, 
No party tool — no candidate for pow'r — 
I come, my lords, an bermit from my cell, 
A few blunt truths in my plain style to tell. 

I say it still : but (let me be believed) 

In this your lordships have been much deceiv'd, 

* Wraxall, " Memoirs," ii. 62. 



HIS CHARACTER 155 

A noble Duke affirms I like his plan : 

I never did, my lords ! — I never can. 

Shame on the slanderous breath which dares instil 

That I, who now condemn, advis'd the ill. 

Plain words, thank Heav'n, are always understood; 

I could approve, I said — but not I would. 

Anxious to make the noble Duke content, 

My view was just to seem to give consent, 

While all the world might see that nothing less was meant."* 

He was an economist of some repute, a disciple of Adam 
Smith and a connoissem: in the arts, his house in Berkeley 
Square being the centre of a considerable party as well as 
the " asylum of taste and science." Beaconsfield called 
him " one of the suppressed characters of English history 
and the ablest and most accomplished statesman of the 
eighteenth century."! With such endowments and op- 
portunities, it is perhaps remarkable that his merits were 
not more widely appreciated, nor his political success 
longer maintained, for the only real faults in his character 
appear to have been a certain secretiveness and suspicion 
of others and too much readiness to lend himself as a go- 
between. His beliefs were certainly sincere, for he stuck 
to them throughout his life, while his political pluck was 
never called in question. 

His career, therefore, and his deserts seem at first sight 
out of harmony, but the apparent discord can be explained. 

Born an Irishman and not a scion of any famous English 
family he was, what was more important, unconnected 
with any of the principal Whig houses. His blood was 
bluer than theirs and his nobility more ancient, but to them 
he was as much a Petty as a Fitzmaurice, and his claims 
to consideration seemed rather derived from Cromwell's 
chemist and surveyor than from the Crusaders or the 
Plantagenets. Brought up under his grandfather, an old 
Irish despot, he had early to learn to dissemble and to 
smile. As a young man he went ofi to the wars, showed his 
mettle, and received exceptional notice— which, perhaps, 
did not greatly endear him to his comrades. Succeeding 
soon afterwards to a peerage and a princely fortune, he 
* EoUiad, 225, 226. t Buckle, ii. 271. 



156 SHELBURNE 

was seized upon by Bute, the suspect Scotsman, and, after 
being used to juggle with Henry Fox, was pushed into 
high place long before his time. Here he reaped the whirl- 
wind. His association with the wicked earl was always 
remembered; the hatred of Holland House never abated. 
Again he came into office, this time as the protege of the 
mighty Chatham. But the Chatham of those days was very 
different from the former Great Commoner. Cantankerous, 
t5n:'annical, mysterious and ailing, his support was largely 
illusory, while Grafton's jealousy was very real. Later on 
came the letters of Junius and the speeches of Burke to 
weigh down the scales still more. Then Chatham died, 
and Shelburne grasped at the mantle of Elijah. This still 
further embittered the Whigs. They were the authorita- 
tive party, the magnates by hereditary right and the 
gentlemen of the House of Commons '' who were elected 
in Lord Rockingham's dining-room." " Shelburne was 
factious," they said, " he was a foreigner, he was a Jesuit," 
and then, as that did not seem enough, " he had sold 
his country." Such remarks have been heard before and 
since. But they did their work. He was forced to vacate 
his place, and even the son of his old friend, whom he 
himself had brought into power, found that it was inex- 
pedient to employ him, whether willingly or not. 

Luckily, Shelburne was a man of courage, of dignity, of 
independent character and means. He stuck to his liberal 
creed, not indeed as a bigot, but as a man of common 
sense. He was able to understand the French Revolution, 
which Pitt never succeeded in doing. In a letter written 
to President Washington in 1794 to introduce M. de 
Talleyrand, he says : " In the present situation of Europe, 
he has nowhere to look for an asylum, except to that 
country, which is happy enough to preserve its peace and 
its happiness under your auspices, to which we may be all 
of us in our turn obliged to look up, if some bounds are not 
speedily put to the opposite storms of anarchy and 
despotism, which threaten Europe with desolation."* 

As things were in the eighteenth century, the direction 
* Fitzmaurice, iii. 515. 



THE WHIGS 157 

of political affairs had lain in the hands of a Whig oligarchy. 
Shelburne did not belong to this oligarchy ; he was inclined 
to be an autocrat, and he believed in. measures rather than 
men. The Whigs were tired of autocrats; they had not 
forgotten Chatham, and they usually put men before 
measures. To them Shelburne was an interloper and a 
heretic. But that he was a better and a more capable 
Whig than many of his contemporaries is .unquestionable. 
It may be that he was too clever, but he was always 
consistent. His profession and his practice were " Peace, 
Eetrenchment and Keform.'" His own crew indeed 
defeated him, but he went down with his flag flying. 



CHAPTEE VIII 
LESSEE LIGHTS 

ADDINGTON, PERCEVAL AND GODERICH 

In tlie course of nearly twenty years' tenure of office tlie 
prestige and the power of the younger Pitt had attracted 
to his party many of the most promising and most am- 
bitious of the political youth of the country. Personal 
friends, sprigs of the aristocracy, newly ennobled partisans 
and freelances of more modest origin alike flocked to his 
banner. Some brought talents, some industry, some 
wealth or connection and some the simple wish for place. 
Pitt had thus a wide field from which to choose his captains. 
Behind him he had the solid phalanx of the country party, 
the " surly squires " who when Burdett spoke 

" resigned tlieir port and ran 
To hear the dangerous but large-acred man."* 

The Grenvilles were already well provided for, and Pitt was 
free to turn his attention to fresh blood. This he did with 
remarkable success. 

In the half-century following the Peace of Amiens ten 
Tory Prime Ministers, besides Pitt, led the government. 
Excepting Stanley, who was still in the nursery, Peel, 
who was at Oxford, and Wellesley, who was soldiering, 
all of these had been Pitt's proteges or colleagues. One, 
Canning, was to attain eminence by his genius, while three 
others, Portland, Liverpool and Aberdeen, were to acquire 
a humbler merit by their devotion to the public service. 
Of those that remained, Addington was an early friend of 
Pitt's and the son of his father's doctor; Perceval was an 
able writer, lawyer and speaker whom Pitt had picked 

* Jennings, 209. 
158 



PITT'S LEGACY 159 

out to help him; while Eobinson, afterwards Lord Goderich, 
was a nephew of Malmesbury's, a cousin of Hardwicke's 
and a disciple of Canning's — all of them among Pitt's 
intimate counsellors. None of the three achieved par- 
ticular celebrity; but they were able to rise to the first 
position in the State by the tradition and the name of their 
potent protector, and to bask in the mellow splendour of 
office long after his sun had set. And those were the palmy 
days of office. During the fifty years in which they acted 
as Prime Ministers, North, Pitt, Addington, Grenville and 
Liverpool drew an average annual salary of £10,000 apiece, 
while in the course of the whole of their political lives, what 
with pensions and sinecures such as the Cinque Ports, the 
Royal Parks and the various auditorships and tellerships 
of the Exchequer, they must have received well over a 
million pounds of public money between them. It is true 
that they each gave something like twenty years' service 
to the State, more or less, but the reward, in the currency 
of those days, was adequate. Thus the legacy which Pitt 
left to his friends and immediate successors was not one 
to be despised. 

I.— ADDINGTON 

Henry Addington was born in London on May 30, 1757, 
the eldest son of Anthony Addington, M.D., a physician of 
Reading, and of Mary, daughter of the Rev. John Hiley, 
headmaster of the grammar school at the same place. The 
Addingtons had been settled on a small estate at Fringf ord, 
in Oxfordshire, since the sixteenth century, though little 
is known of their early history. Anthony Addington was 
a doctor of considerable skill and reputation, who, after 
practising in the county, had come up to London. In this 
capacity he attended Lord Chatham, who conceived a close 
friendship for him, and this friendship was continued 
between their two sons. 

Henry Addington was educated at Cheam, at Winchester 
and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he won the 
Chancellor's gold medal for English Essay. Of the ancient 
classics Homer was his favourite, though he was never a 



160 ADDIKGTON 

great Greek or Latin scholar. His intended profession was 
the law, and lie was duly entered at Lincoln's Inn. At the 
age of twenty-four he married Ursula Mary, eldest daughter 
of Leonard Hammond of Cheam, and then established himself 
at a small house in Southampton Street, London, intending to 
take to practice. During the next two years, however, his 
intimacy with William Pitt, then rising to power, turned 
his thoughts to politics. Pitt was anxious to have some 
real friends at his side in Parliament, and, encouraged by 
him, Addington in 1784 was elected member for Devizes in 
place of Mr. James Sutton, his brother-in-law. At this 
time he was only personally acquainted with three members 
of the House of Commons and had little ambition. But 
constant association with the new Prime Minister urged 
him forward. In January, 1786, Pitt asked him to second 
the Address in the following formal letter : 

"Downing Steeet, 
" My dear Sir, " J<^^'^^''y 4, 1786. 

" The approach of the session makes me naturally 
anxious to see the moving and seconding the address placed 
in respectable hands. On this ground I should feel parti- 
cular pleasure if you could be prevailed upon to undertake 
the latter; and if you have no strong objection, I flatter 
myself your kindness and friendship to me will incline you 
to comply with this request. 

" I will not disguise tJiat in asking this favour of you, 
I look beyond the immediate object of the first day's debate, 
from a persuasion that whatever induces you to take a part 
in public, will equally contribute to your personal credit, 
and that of the system to which I have the pleasure of 
thinking you are so warmly attached. 

Believe me to be, with great truth and regard, my dear 
Sir, faithfully and sincerely yours, 

" W. Pitt/'* 

Addington's speech does not seem to have set the 
Thames on fire, but he stuck to his work, and his letters 

* PeUew, i. 40. 



BECOMES SPEAKER 161 

show an increasing interest in politics. One is interesting 
for its reference to two future premiers: 

February 22, 1787. 

" We had a glorious debate last niglit upon the motion 
for an address of thanks to the King for having negotiated 
the commercial treaty. I was not in bed till three o'clock, 
which to a committee man is rather an unseasonable hour. 
A new speaker presented himself to the House, and went 
through his first performance with an eclat which has not 
been equalled within my recollection. His name is Grey. 
He is not more than twenty- two years of age, and he took 
his seat, which is for Northumberland, only in the present 
session. I do not go too far in declaring that in the 
advantages of figure, voice, elocution, and manner, he is 
not surpassed by any one member of the House ; and I grieve 
to say that he was last night in the ranks of opposition, 
from whence there is no prospect of his being detached. 
Mr. Grenville, I should also say, did himself peculiar 
honour, and indeed has laid the foundation of a very high 
reputation for great information, and unremitting per- 
severance. Of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, I say nothing, 
excepting that they were quite themselves.''* 

Addington had been four sessions in Parliament before 
he made his second speech, and it is clear that debate was 
not his forte. He devoted himself, however, to com- 
mittees and to the business of the House, with which he 
made himself thoroughly acquainted. His circle of friends 
was increasing, and his name was constantly mentioned 
in connection with office, though so far nothing definite 
had been offered him. In June 1789, however, Grenville, 
Pitt's cousin, was suddenly transferred from the Speaker's 
chair to the Home Office. Pitt, who was all-powerful, 
determined that Addington should succeed him. He was 
accordingly proposed by Lord Graham and seconded by 
Mr. Grosvenor, and on his election by a considerable 
majority he enjoyed the special distinction of receiving the 

* Pellew, i. 45. 



162 ADDINGTON 

King's approval in person — an honour partly due, perhaps, 
to the fact that old Dr. Addington's advice had recently- 
been sought on His Majesty's illness. This was the be- 
ginning of a friendship which George III. long maintained, 
and which not a little influenced Addington's later career. 

Although only thirty-two years of age, he entered upon 
his duties in the Chair with general approbation, for it was 
felt that his abilities were of the sober and dignified 
order and likely to be in harmony with the traditions of 
that high position. 

He made a satisfactory and popular Speaker. The year 
after his election a salary of £6,000 a year was voted him, 
the first occasion on which a definite provision had been 
assigned to his office by the House of Commons. His father 
had just died, and in 1790 he was able to buy a small house 
near Reading, where he used to spend the recess. 

He kept up his friendship with Pitt, and was among his 
most constant guests. He was one of four at a small dinner 
in Downing Street, with Grenville and Burke, when Pitt 
remarked, apropos of the French Revolution, that things 
in England would "go on as we are until the day of 
judgment." " Very likely. Sir," said Burke; "it is the 
day of no judgment that I am afraid of."* 

In 1793 Addington was offered the post of Secretary of 
State, but after some consideration he declined. His 
talents, he felt, were better suited to the place he already 
held. He was, however, kept in close touch with the 
Cabinet business, and knew most of their secrets, for during 
the sitting of Parliament Pitt generally shared his supper, 
and Addington often had his work cut out in restraining 
the Prime Minister from drinking the extra bottle. The 
two friends also stayed with each other in the country, and 
Addington's position in Pitt's confidence and his experience 
in his own office gradually gave him some weight in affairs . 

In February, 1801, the momentous question of Catholic 
relief began to cause dissension between Pitt and the King. 
George III. was unalterably opposed to this breach, as he 
thought it, of his Coronation Oath. He took the first 

* Jennings, 168. 



PRIME MINISTER 163 

action in tlie matter by writing to the Speaker, requesting 
him to use his influence with Pitt to induce him to meet the 
royal views. The King had real respect and liking for 
Addington. He had recently visited him at Woodley, his 
country home, to inspect a troop of yeomanry which 
Addington had raised and commanded. George III. re- 
garded him as a moral and pliable man, and when the 
negotiations were not successful he determined to change 
his minister and to put Addington in Pitt's place. He 
wrote as follows: 

" Queen's House, 

" February I, 1801. 

" The King has received this morning the expected paper 
from Mr. Pitt. He is desirous of returning an answer to it 
in the course of the day, as he cannot bear to keep a man 
whom he both loves and respects under a most unpleasant 
state of suspense, when, on the real matter of the com- 
munication, his Majesty's opinion is most completely and 
unalterably formed. He therefore is desirous of seeing 
Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons this forenoon as 
early as Mr. Addington's attendance at divine worship may 
be over, and that he will then come here in his walking 
dress, as the King would wish to have his safe opinion as 
to the mode of conveying sentiments that certainly will be 
affectionate, though the determination cannot be pleasing, 
but these are meant to be so couched as to stave ofi the evil 
though without (encouraging) the smallest hope of ever 
giving way, where conscience and every duty to the 
country point out the culpability that must attend the 
King's departing from what he feels to be his religious and 

"'"' '^"*y- " Geoeqe R."* 

Pitt, however, remained obdurate and resigned. After 
some delay occasioned by the King's illness, Addington, 
on March 14, received the seals as First Lord of the 
Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was already 
a privy councillor, and after twelve years in the Chair he 
probably felt fairly sure of himself, especially as Pitt had 

* Pellew, i. 288. 



164 ADDINGTON 

promised him his countenance. But Addington with Pitt 
as his friend and in the judicial position o£ Speaker was 
very different from Addington as a political leader and 
debater across the floor of th€ House, when opposed by Pitt 
and Pitt's friends. 

At first matters ran smoothly enough, but after the 
Peace of Amiens criticisms and hostilities began. The 
comparison between the late and the present minister was 
too severe. The world said : 

" As London is to Paddington, 
So is Pitt to Addington."* 

And whatever Pitt may have thought himself, Pitt's 
colleagues out of office resented Addington's presence 
extremely. The European outlook was stormy. The 
King was ill. The Opposition was strong and competent. 
Addington had, it is true, his majority, and he managed 
to retain the royal confidence. But this gradually became 
his sole support, and it was insufficient to maintain him. 

Until the end of 1802 his friendship and correspondence 
with Pitt continued. Pitt was consulted on many 
questions, and gave his approval to the budget. But 
Grenville, the late Foreign Secretary, and Malmesbury, 
the most prominent diplomat in the country, were Ad- 
dington's constant opponents. The policy of his ministry 
was pacific. Pitt's policy was the reverse, and his friends 
were determined to keep him up to it. They considered that 
the conduct of the finances and the defence of the country 
were unsound, and that Pitt alone could put them right. 
Canning was particularly virulent against Addington, 
whom he called the le medecin malgre lui, " the 
Doctor," and his house the '' Villa Medici." Early in 1803 
Addington realized the extreme insecurity of his position 
and made attempts to induce Pitt to re-enter the Cabinet. 
But his efforts were fruitless. Pitt was not in good health, 
and he was dissatisfied with the way in which the govern- 
ment was being carried on, but he was determined not to 
take office except as Prime Minister. Lord Melville was 

* Jennings, 185. 



HIS RESIGNATION 165 

sent by Addington to see Pitt and hear his views. Melville's 
letter from Walmer Castle on March 22, 1803, says of his 
interview with Pitt: 

'' He stated, not less pointedly and decidedly, his senti- 
ments with regard to the absolute necessity there is, in 
the conduct of the afiairs of this country, that there should 
be an avowed and real minister possessing the chief weight 
in council and the principal place in the confidence of the 
King. In that respect there can be no rivality or division 
of power. That power must rest in the person generally 
called the First Minister; and that Minister ought he thinks 
to be the person at the head of the finances."* 

Addington, however, was not yet disposed to resign, 
so Pitt, who had for some time absented himself from 
Parliament, now began to resume his attendance, and on 
one or two occasions divided the House against the 
ministers, though without getting a majority. 

In 1803 war was again declared on France, and it became 
clear that the government must soon go. What might 
perhaps serve in peace was not fit to deal with a war of 
giants. The attacks on the ministry redoubled and its 
votes began to dwindle, 

Pitt and Fox were thus working together, and on 
April 25, 1804, they succeeded in leaving Addington with a 
majority of only thirty-seven. This determined him to 
retire. On May 10 he handed over the seals, and was 
succeeded by Pitt. The King offered him an earldom and 
a pension for his wife, both of which he declined. But the 
Royal Lodge in Richmond Park, which he had received 
some time previously, was continued to him for his life, and 
he had also appointed his eldest son to a highly paid 
permanent office and had secured places for several relatives. 
He took the lead of a party called "the King's friends." 

Between Addington and Pitt there was now a distinct 
coolness, and this lasted until the end of the year. The 
King, however, was anxious for them to resume their 
friendship, and mainly by the good offices of Lord Hawkes- 

* Pellew, ii. 116. 



166 ADDINGTON 

bury, the future Lord Liverpool, a reconciliation was 
arranged. Pitt then asked Addington to re-enter the 
Cabinet, and the latter after some hesitation agreed. In 
January 1805 he was sworn Lord President of the Council 
and created Viscount Sidmouth. With the King he re- 
mained on the best of terms and in this month he dined 
with His Majesty tete-a-tete at Kew, " an honour not 
conferred on any subject since Lord Bute."* But there 
still remained a feeling of soreness and the seeds of dis- 
union, and in the following July, after other disagreements, 
he again resigned. Six months later Pitt died. 

A change seems now to have taken place in Sidmouth's 
outlook : it was not for the better. Hitherto he had tried 
to be a statesman; now he became a politician, and place 
began to count. He was approached by Grenville and 
accepted office as Lord Privy Seal, and subsequently as 
Lord President, in a Whig government. In twelve months, 
however, the ministry of All the Talents ceased to exist 
and for the next few years Sidmouth was left out of office. 
At this time his health was very uncertain, his son was 
suffering from illness and in 1811 his wife died. These 
troubles withdrew him to some extent from politics, but 
in 1812 he again showed more active concern in them. In 
April of that year he became Lord President under Perceval 
and soon afterwards Home Secretary under Lord Liverpool, 
a post which he continued to occupy for nearly ten years. 
His long administration of the domestic affairs of the 
country is not of much interest, but it is generally regarded 
as having been reactionary. He had, however, difficulties 
enough to meet. The Luddite and Manchester riots, the 
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the censorship of 
the Press and the Six Acts all occurred during his tenure 
of office. The war had brought about unrest and unem- 
ployment: they had to be dealt with, and there was little 
glory to be gained. Addington, however, carried through 
his duties with moderate success, an undistinguished 
member of an undistinguished government. By the time 
that George IV. succeeded he had held office in six 
* Jesse, " George III.," iii. 412, note. 




T. Thorapion -finx. 



S. ir. Reynolds sc. 



HENRY ADDINGTON 

AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT SIDMOUTH 



Tofacepor/e 166 



HIS CHAEACTER 167 

administrations and for a period of nearly thirty years. 
Canning used to say that he was like the smallpox, that 
everyone was obliged to have him once in their lives. * 

But he was getting old, and at last he determined to 
retire. In January 1822 he was replaced by Peel, and 
though he remained for another two years a member of the 
Cabinet, his active work was now finished. On his retire- 
ment a pension of £3,000 a year was conferred upon him. 

In 1823 he had married as his second wife the Hon. 
Marian Scott, widow of Thomas Townsend and only 
daughter of Lord Stowell, whose large fortune he in- 
herited twelve years later. He then resigned his pension. 
In 1832 he voted against the Reform Bill, but he had ceased 
to take much part in politics, and his later years were 
tranquil and devout. He survived nearly all his contem- 
poraries; and died in 1844 at the great age of eighty-five. 
The present peer is his descendant. 

Addington was a man of a fine face and figure, tall, erect 
and dignified. His appearance probably helped him not 
a little in his earlier career. In manner he was imposing, 
and he never forgot " his short and unreal caliphate. ''f 

His character bears some resemblance to that of 

George III., his patron. Green calls him a weak and 

narrow-minded man, and as bigoted as the King himself. J 

He was religious, domestic, upright and painstaking. Of 

a quiet spirit, though without much talent, he was tenacious 

of his opinions, an energetic friend and had some literary and 

general interests. By his critics he was thought conceited, 

pompous and incompetent. But his lot lay in troublous 

times, and his association with the mighty spirits of a 

clashing epoch emphasized his mediocrity. The first 

premier who was drawn straight from the middle classes, he 

was conscious of what in those days was a serious handicap. 

He realized his limitations and attempted, not without 

success, to expand them by industry, patience and correct 

conduct. A Tory by nature, his views occasionally showed 

some faint signs of liberalism, though more in principle 

than practice. Neither as a speaker nor an administrator 

* Jennings, 186. f Macaulay, vii. 401. J Green, iv. 351. 

12 



168 PERCEVAL 

did lie do more than maintain a level of respectability. 
Of his private life not much is known. He was a regular 
church-goer, careful of his money, an active ofhcer of his 
local yeomanry. His chief amusements were riding and 
writing modest poetry. Eldon, Wellesley and Wilberforce 
were among his friends. Towards the end of his life he was 
looked upon as. a sort of political Nestor, but chiefly, it seems, 
by those who had no actual experience of his achievements. 
Addington's career crossed two diverse centuries. Born 
in the reign of George II., as a boy he could remember Lord 
Chatham when he was Prime Minister. In his old age he 
must have often seen Queen Victoria and Gladstone as a 
young member of Parliament. He was distinctly not a 
great man, but having had greatness thrust upon him, his 
appetite for power was whetted. He strove to do his duty 
creditably, but he was a minnow among tritons. 

II.— PERCEVAL 

The Hon. Spencer Perceval was born in Audley Square, 
London, on November 1, 1762, the fourth son of John, 
second Earl of Egmont, by his second wife Catherine, 
daughter of the Hon. Charles Compton, a nephew of the 
Lord Wilmington who was formerly Prime Minister. The 
family of Perceval, ancient and distinguished, was origin- 
ally from Somerset, but had long been settled in Ireland. 
In the eighteenth century, however, the first and second 
earls had occupied themselves with English politics, both, 
as Irish peers, being able to sit in the English House of 
Commons. 

Perceval's father died when he was ten years old, and 
his eldest half-brother, who was considerably his senior, 
succeeded to the peerage. Perceval was sent to Harrow 
and then to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained 
the English Declamation prize. In 1783 his mother died. 
She had been created Baroness Arden, and Perceval's elder 
brother of the whole blood inherited that title with a con- 
siderable fortune. He himself, however, was left with a 
younger son's portion of only £200 a year, and he had to 
devote himself seriously to the Bar. He was called at 



EARLY LIFE 169 

Lincoln's Inn in January 1786 and went the Midland 
Circuit, of which he afterwards became the leader. 
Romilly says that he was a great acquisition to their 
society^: " With very little reading, of a conversation barren 
of instruction and with strong invincible prejudices on 
many subjects, yet by his excellent temper, his engaging 
manners and his sprightly conversation he was the delight 
of all who knew him."* 

In 1787 his brother, Lord Arden, married a daughter of 
Sir James Wilson, of Charlton, near Woolwich. Perceval 
fell in love with her younger sister, who was unusually 
pretty. But Perceval and his brother were very different 
persons as regards eligibility, and there was considerable 
opposition to the marriage on the part of the lady's relations. 
Not until 1790 did it take place, and then the bride was 
" only dressed in her riding-habit." f 

By the interest of Lord Northampton, who was his 
cousin, Perceval was now given a small sinecure at the 
Mint — Surveyor of the Meltings and Clerk of the Irons — 
which was worth £120 a year. Even this pittance was a 
welcome addition to his income, for the young couple were 
very badly off. At first they lived in lodgings over a 
carpet shop in Bedford Row, moving afterwards to 
Lincoln's Inn Fields. In the first six years of their marriage 
they had five children, and Perceval had to work hard to 
make both ends meet. But he did so with energy and 
success. In 1790 he had published a political pamphlet 
which brought him an introduction to Mr. Pitt. In con- 
sequence of this he was retained by the Crown on the trial 
of Paine in 1792, and of Home Tooke in 1794, and in the 
latter year he was made counsel to the Admiralty. 

Two years later he took silk, and had by then begun 
to make a name at the Bar. At this point in his career 
Pitt suddenly offered him the post of Chief Secretary for 
Ireland, and at the same time undertook to secure him 
against future financial loss. In his letter Pitt says: ** It 
would be impossible to propose to you to exchange your 
present situation and prospects for anything so precarious 
* Eomilly, i. 91. f Walpole, "Perceval," i. 12. 



170 PEECEVAL 

as the line of politics, if there were not at the same time 
the means of ensmring to you some provision of a permanent 
nature. On that point and on any other particulars which 
may require explanation I shall be happy to converse with 
you fully/'* Perceval, however, did not hesitate. In a 
long but modest and sensible reply he declined the offer, 
purely on the grounds of his family and their prospects. 
*' Even if you were prepared,'' he writes, " to of5^er me such 
terms as I should think sufficient to answer the claims of 
my family upon me, I would not accept them, because I 
should feel they would be so much too great for any service 
I could render to the Public, that you could not grant them 
with any degree of credit to yourself, or indeed without the 
inexcusable profusion of the public money. "f It was rare 
to find at that time so much dignity and so much considera- 
tion for the public interest, and Pitt did not forget it. 

Three months later a vacancy occurred at Northampton. 
Perceval was the deputy recorder and a cousin of Lord 
Compton, the late member. He was elected at once, and 
again at the ensuing general election. He had now to 
make his mark in the House of Commons. This he found 
very different from Westminster Hall, and at first he made 
slow progress. But he spoke continually, answering the 
leaders of the Opposition with weighty and pointed argu- 
ments, and supporting the measures of the government. 
He was a strong Tory, and his forensic experience stood 
him in good stead. His grasp of affairs widened, his 
diffidence diminished and his reputation increased. 

In 1798 Pitt fought his duel with Tierney. Eyder, 
afterwards Lord Harrowby, was his second. Before the 
meeting he asked Pitt whom he thought most competent 
to succeed him in case he should fall. Pitt reflected and 
then said that " he thought Mr. Perceval was the most 
competent person, and that he appeared the most equal 
to cope with Mr. Fox." J It was a remarkable tribute, 
and enhanced the consideration which Perceval already 
enjoyed. 

In this year Perceval was made Solicitor-General to the 
* Walpole, " Perceval," i. 20, 21. f Ihid., i. 23, 24. % Ibid., i. 151. 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL 171 

Queen and solicitor to the Board of Ordnance, and soon 
afterwards was given a similar employment by the 
University of Cambridge. His emoluments increased. 
By the year 1800 he was making nearly £2,000 a year, 
a good income in those days for a King's Counsel. 

In 1801 Pitt resigned on the Catholic question, and 
Addington took his place. Perceval was appointed 
Solicitor-General in tne new government, and he then left 
the King's Bench and in future confined himself to the 
Chancery Bar. Next year, on Law's becoming Chief 
Justice, he was promoted to be Attorney-General. Much 
of his work was outside Parliament, and he did it with 
equal ability and care. His merits as an advocate were now 
universally recognized, and just before the fall of Addington 
he was offered the place of Chief Justice of the Common 
Pleas, with a peerage. But this he refused, and he took 
a courageous and prominent part in defending the tottering 
ministry, for which he was much admired. 

On Pitt's coming back to office in 1804, he was most 
anxious to retain the help of Perceval, whose value he 
thoroughly appreciated. He employed Lord Harrowby 
to sound him, and eventually Perceval agreed, but on the 
terms (1) that Fox should not be in the government, 
(2) that Addington's administration should not be in- 
criminated, and (3) that the Catholic question should be left 
alone. Pitt made no difficulties, and Perceval remained on 
as a leading member of his administration. When a year 
later Pitt died, and Grenville replaced him, Perceval took 
over the lead of the Opposition in the House of Commons. 

He had a poor opinion of the ministry of AH the Talents, 
and said that " a more incompetent government for the 
detail of business was hardly ever seen."* A strong party 
man, in his view little that the Whigs did was ever right. 

About this time Perceval was unfortunate enough 
to incur the enmity of the Prince of Wales, the friend of 
Fox and the Whigs, firstly as regards the guardianship of 
Miss Seymour, in which Mrs. Fitzherbert was involved, and 
secondly with reference to the conduct of the Princess. 
* Walpole, "Perceval," i. 195. 



172 PEECEVAL 

In both cases Perceval was engaged on the side opposed 
to the Prince, and this was not likely to benefit his prospects 
should a Ptegency occur. 

In October 1806 Fox died, and Grenville then en- 
deavoured to induce Perceval to enter his government. 
Perceval, however, would not hear of the suggestion. A few 
months later the Catholic relief question came again to the 
fore. Grenville supported it, while Perceval opposed it vehe- 
mently. His speech against the proposal did much to defeat 
the ministry, and shortly afterwards Grenville resigned. 

The Tories now resumed office under the nominal 
leadership of the old Duke of Portland, who was nearly 
seventy years of age and had been Prime Minister twenty- 
four years earlier. On March 18 Grenville writes to 
Buckingham from Downing Street : " The general opinion is 
that the Duke of Portland is to come here, with Perceval, 
who in that case will of course be the real minister. ""* 
Perceval was one of the most prominent and industrious 
of the younger men, and he was made Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, with the lead of the House of Commons. At 
first his appointment raised some difficulties. The salary 
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was then only £1,300 
a year with a house. Perceval in 1804, when Attorney- 
General, had made over £9,000. Without any capital and 
with a large family dependent on him, he felt that he could 
not aft or d to bear such a loss, and he rather demurred to 
accepting the post. An arrangement was accordingly 
come to, though with some opposition, by which he was 
also appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during 
pleasure. This gave him the financial security that he 
needed. 

In order to get some country air, he bought a house near 
Ealing, at present the public library, to which he used to 
ride out from Downing Street after transacting his official 
business. Much of his work was new to him and he 
found it heavy, for the ministry was not strong, although 
it comprised many notable men. Seven future Prime 
Ministers were in it: Perceval, Liverpool, Canning, 
* Buckingham, iv. 144. 




G. H. Joseph pinx. 



C. Turner sc. 



SPENCER PERCEVAL 



To .race page 172 



PRIME MINISTER 173 

Robinson, Wellesley, Peel and Palmerston. But it had 
no real chief and its machinery was disunited. 

In 1808 the delicate question of the Duke of York and 
Mrs. Clarke's sale of commissions came before Parliament. 
Perceval took a moderate line about this and treated it 
with great tact. Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Dulce of 
Wellington, said that he had never heard a better speech. 
Perceval also carried through the measures of blockade 
against the Emperor Napoleon which were known as the 
Orders in Council. In his budgets he showed considerable 
financial capacity, and he was generally regarded as the 
principal pillar of the government. The Duke of Portland 
was failing in health, and exercised little control in 
the Cabinet. Perceval and Canning, who was Foreign 
Secretary, had both an eye on the succession, and they 
had some correspondence on the subject, which did not 
much help matters forward. In the meantime a long 
quarrel between Canning and Castlereagh culminated in 
a duel, and largely as a result of this Portland notified 
the King of his resignation. Canning and Castlereagh taking 
the same course. On September 23 Perceval wrote from 
Windsor to Lord Grenville : 

" My Lord, 

" The Dul^e of Portland having signified to His 
Majesty his intention of retiring from His Majesty's service, 
in consequence of the state of his Grace's health. His 
Majesty has authorized Lord Liverpool, in conjunction with 
myself, to communicate with your lordship and Lord Grey, 
for the purpose of forming an extended and combined 
administration. 

" I hope therefore that your lordship, in consequence of 
this communication, will come to town, in order that as 
little time as possible may be lost in forwarding this 
important object; and that you will have the goodness to 
inform me of your arrival. 

" I am also to inform your lordship that I have received 
His Majesty's commands to make a similar communication 
to Lord Grey of his Majesty's pleasure. 



174 PEKCEVAL 

" I think it proper to add, for your lordship's informa- 
tion, that Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Secretary Canning 
have intimated their intentions to resign their offices. 

" I have, etc., 

" S. Perceval."* 

Some negotiations foUov/ed with Lords Grey and 
Grenville, but they led to nothing, and on October 4 the 
King appointed Perceval Prime Minister. 

The new Cabinet was soon formed, and Perceval seized 
the reins with a firm hand. Early in 1810 he had the 
opportunity of taking for himself one of the rich tellerships 
of the Exchequer, a life office. This, though he was a poor 
man, he declined to do, following Pitt's example. The 
session passed off with success, but at the end of the year 
the illness of the King made a Regency Bill necessary. 
This was a complicated and difficult measure to pilot 
through Parliament, for the Prince of Wales wanted more 
power than the government would give him. Throughout 
the debates Perceval conducted himself with striking 
courage and independence, though he had all the Prince of 
Wales's friends and most of the Royal Family against him. 
Eventually the ministers carried their point, and when the 
Prince of Wales became Regent, perhaps conscious of the 
feeling in the country, he continued the same government 
in office. 

By the beginning of 1812 PercevaFs position was well 
assured. He was recognized as an able man and a 
resolute leader, and much was expected of him. But his 
days were finished. On May 11, as he was entering the 
lobby of the House of Commons, a madman named 
Bellingham, a bankrupt who had recently left prison, 
stepped forward and shot him dead. This calamity caused 
an intense sensation and wide regret in the country, for 
Perceval was only in his fiftieth year, and was a respected 
and popular figure. In the speeches that were made in his 
praise both friends and foes joined. He was buried at 
Charlton, and ParHament voted him a public monument, 
* Buckingliam, iv. 375. 



HIS CHAKACTER 175 

a grant of £60,000 to Ms family, and an annuity of £2,000 
to his wife and eldest son. He left numerous children 
and has many descendants now living. 

Of personal advantages Perceval had few. He was thin, 
pale and singularly short in stature. " Little P.'' Lord 
Eldon used to call him. This lack of attractions he could 
not supplement much by social arts or hospitality, for he 
was always dependent on his industry for his livelihood, and 
had not much time nor money for other objects. As a 
speaker, though no orator, he was an acute, good- 
tempered debater, watchful of every fair advantage against 
his opponents. Even his critics used to allow that single- 
handed " he had beaten all the Talents.'' 

As to his character, all his contemporaries are agreed. 
He was calm, sincere, affectionate, intensely religious and of 
a severe and upright morality. " His private virtues were, 
in fact, so great that his satirists used them as the basis 
of their attacks upon his public conduct " — e.g., " I say I 
fear that he will ruin Ireland and pursue a line of policy 
destructive to the true interest of his country; and then 
you tell me that he is faithful to Mrs. Perceval and kind to 
the Master Percevals."* But as regards his political 
qualifications there is more dispute. Napier calls him 
narrow, factious and illiberal, and Green takes much the 
same view. He was always bitterly opposed to Catholic 
emancipation and to parliamentary reform, a constant 
advocate of the French War, a strong Tory, and in principle 
at any rate a firm supporter of the prerogative. With 
" nimbleness of mind and industry of application,'' he was 
yet " the slave of violent prejudices."! 

Perceval was a man of limited views and of dogged 
tenacity, but an honest and able minister, whose private 
virtues strengthened and confirmed his conservatism. 
He had no time to pass any great measures, for his career 
was cut short before he had established a claim to real 
success or failure. Indeed, it may well be that his 
martyrdom was the salvation of his political reputation. 
But he governed the country with firm and clean hands, 
* Walpole, " Perceval," ii. 313. f Brougham, i. 248, 253. 



176 GODERICH 

and had sufficient confidence and reliance in himself to be 
unaffected by the taunts of genius, the threats of princes 
or the allurements of riches. 



III.— GODERICH 

The Hon. Frederick John Robinson, afterwards Viscount 
Goderich and Earl of Ripon, was born on November 1, 
1782, the second son of Thomas, second Lord Grantham, 
by Lady Mary Jemima Yorke, daughter of Philip, second 
Earl of Hardwicke. The Robinsons were a Yorkshire 
family who had represented the city of York in Parliament 
for several generations. They were settled at Newby and 
were of considerable wealth, while the Hardwicke alliance 
eventually brought them the estates of the ancient line of 
de Grey. The first Lord Grantham had been that Sir 
Thomas Robinson who had acted as Secretary of State 
under Newcastle, and had incurred the irony and ridicule 
of the elder Pitt. A painstaking and conscientious official, 
he had been rewarded with a peerage. The second lord 
had served as ambassador in Spain and as Secretary of State 
under Shelburne, but died in 1786. A brother-in-law of 
Malmesbury and a friend of all the leading politicians of 
the day, his offspring were likely to do well. Indeed, 
he reckoned Cromwell among his ancestors. 

His son Frederick was educated first at Harrow, with 
Aberdeen and Palmerston, and then at St. John's College, 
Cambridge, where he won the Browne medal for Latin 
verse. For two years he acted as private secretary to his 
cousin, Lord Hardwicke, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 
and in 1806 he was elected member for Carlow and next 
year for Ripon. He joined the Tory party, and being well 
connected, pleasant and popular in society and in the 
House of Commons, in 1809 he was made Under-Secretary 
for the Colonies, and then a Junior Lord of the Admiralty. 
Two years later he was sworn a privy councillor and became 
Paymaster-General. He accompanied Castlereagh abroad 
in 1813, and remained with him during the negotiations for 
peace. At this time he was considered a handy man of 



HIS MERITS 177 

business, and was credited with possessing " the smartness 
and classical recollection " of Canning. 

Hazlitt says of him: " I am not going to claim for this 
gentleman the honours due only to first-rate talents, but I 
am sure that there are several persons who are admired in 
the Commons as master-builders in state-science, and whose 
voices guide whole flocks, who, however, at the same time, 
have not half the knowledge, half the good sense, or half 
the taste of Mr. Robinson. He is the most promising and 
the least assuming of all the young aspirants: he scarcely 
ever puts himself forward, but whenever he speaks in 
confirmation of the arguments or the statement of his 
superior officers, it is impossible not to feel some surprise 
that one who ought to be in the principal ranks should still 
be confined to the second. His narration and his reasoning 
are remarkable for perspicuity and point, and if, now and 
then, it falls to his lot to declaim on any of the more im- 
portant topics which occupy the attention of Parliament, 
he never fails to interest the House by an unaffected anima- 
tion of style, which seeks no aids from fustian or coxcomical 
antithesis. Indeed, his distinguishing feature is a well- 
instructed good sense, by which on all occasions he is able 
to accommodate his tone and diction to the importance of 
his subject with the most pleasing nicety of proportion. 
Unlike the rest of the young men, who always assume the 
most dignified and the most solemn tones, even when they 
bring up a report of a committee, Mr. Robinson seems to 
have no taste for mock-pomp. On a common subject 
his tone is conversational, though never flippant: on a 
great subject he can rise to the proper height without 
laborious straining,"* 

In 1814 he married Lady Sarah Hobart, daughter of the 
fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire, and settled into the routine 
of minor office. He possessed capabilities, though he was 
not particularly active in developing them. In society he 
was a sort of genial butt. He had, says Croker, " an absent 
enthusiastic way of telling stories which were often very 
much mal a propos." There was an old tale of Lord North 
* Hazlitt, " Pari. Portraits," 177-178. 



178 GODEEICH 

being asked by a neighbour at dinner, "Who is that frightful 
woman opposite ?" " Oh," said North, " that is my wife." 
" No," said the other, " I meant the monster next her." 
" That," said North, " is my daughter, and I may tell you, 
sir, that we are considered to be three of the ugliest 
people in London." This ancient joke Robinson retailed 
many years later to the lady next him at a party. He re- 
marked that it was not received with as much relish as he 
had recounted it, and he then recollected that he was talking 
to the monster in question.* 

He had acquired some slight reputation for a knowledge of 
political economy, and in 1815 he introduced a Protection 
bill restricting the importation of foreign corn. In 
consequence of this his house in Old Burlington Street was 
broken into by the mob and his pictures and furniture much 
damaged. Liverpool, however, thought well of him, and 
in 1818 made him President of the Board of Trade 
and admitted him to the Cabinet, His colleagues were 
astonished, for he was still considered an unknown quantity. 
" Why Fred Robinson is in the Cabinet I don't know," said 
Legge, " nor do I recollect to whom he is supposed more 
particularly to belong."| His vague, nervous and busy 
manners were a subject of ridicule, and he was called the 
Duke of Bordotradovitch, the Duke of Fuss and Bustle 
and so on. But although he seemed to do little beyond 
occasionally answering a question on trade, the name of 
a sound financier stuck to him. 

On the reconstruction of the ministry at the beginning 
of 1823 Robinson, who had now attached himself to 
Canning, was promoted to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
This, according to Lord Colchester, nobody thought would 
answer. But for the next four years he remained at the 
Treasury, where he used to be so sanguine about his 
budgets that he was nicknamed " Prosperity Robinson." 
With the help of his able colleague Herries, he introduced 
several measures of fiscal reform, for " he had the faculty of 
using the brains of his subordinates. "J Croker writes of 
him: " Robinson must work and some are even of opinion 
* Croker, i. 330. f Colchester, iii. 38. J Wolf, i. 18. 




T. Lai'jre'iice 2^i 



C. Turner sc. 



FREDERICK ROBINSON 

VISCOUNT GODERICH 

AFTERWARDS EARL OF RIPON 



To face page ITS 



PRIME MINISTER 179 

that he would with a little practice become an excellent and 
powerful debater . . . but I doubt his making the effort."* 
Yet Liverpool still believed in him, for in response to 
Robinson's application to go to the Upper House so as to 
have less work and help him in the debates there, he writes 
in December 1826: " Your voluntarily quitting the office 
of Chancellor of the Exchequer at the present moment 
would infallibly bring on the crisis which must lead to the 
dissolution of the government, "t 

Lord G-rantham, Robinson's elder brother, had now 
become heir to the earldom of de Grey and its large estates. 
He had no sons, and Robinson was next in the succession. 
This alteration in his prospects did him no harm. 

On Canning's accession to the head of affairs in 1827 
Robinson was made Secretary for War and the Colonies, 
and at the same time was raised to the peerage. Perhaps 
a subconscious admiration for wealth and virtue made him 
choose the appropriate title of Viscount Goderich. At 
the same time he assumed the lead in the House of Lords, 
though not with any striking success. Four months later 
Canning died. It was generally expected that the Duke 
of Wellington would become Prime Minister, but the King, 
ready to get a pliant servant, sent for Goderich, as a leading 
Canningite, and commissioned him to form a government. 
Goderich succeeded in retaining most of the Cabinet and 
in inducing the Duke of Wellington again to accept the 
command of the army. But in a short time difficulties and 
discontents of every kind began to divide the ministry. 
Goderich had not sufficient weight or activity to hold it 
together, and neither Whigs nor Tories would defer to him. 
He was hardly a Prime Minister at all, and he used to say 
himself: " On the contrary, quite the reverse." In that 
capacity he never met Parliament, for early in 1828, after 
some disputes between Huskisson and Herries, two of his 
principal supporters, he decided to resign, alleging among 
other reasons the state of his wife's health. 

The Duke of Wellington replaced him, but did not include 
him in the ministry. In 1830, however, on Lord Grey's 
* Croker, i. 230. f Yonge, iii. 441. 



180 GODERICH 

coming into power Goderich agreed to join the Whig 
Cabinet, and took his old place at the War Office. Two 
years later, to accommodate a transfer of places, he was 
made Lord Privy Seal, created Earl of Ripon, and given 
the Garter. Greville's account of this comprehensive and 
remarkable promotion is as follows: " I have heard' to- 
night the Goderich version of his late translation. He 
had agreed to remain in the Cabinet without an office, but 
Lord Grey insisted on his taking the Privy Seal, and 
threatened to resign if he did not ; he was at last bullied into 
acquiescence, and when he had his audience of the King 
his Majesty offered him anything he had to give. He said 
he had made the sacrifice to please and serve him, and 
would take nothing. An earldom — he refused; the Bath — 
ditto ; the Garter — that he said he would take. It was then 
discovered that he was not of rank sufficient, when he said 
he would take the earldom in order to qualify himself for 
the Garter, and so it stands."* 

Croker was very much annoyed at this transaction, as he 
considered that a Canningite should never have joined Grey. 
In 1834, however. Lord Ripon, as he was now styled, left 
the government on the Irish Church question, and remained 
out of office until 1841. He then became President of the 
Board of Trade in Peel's administration and soon after- 
wards was made President of the India Board. Here he 
remained until 1846 when Peel's government resigned. 
He did not hold office again and died in 1859 at the age 
of seventy-six. His son, a distinguished statesman who 
served for many years under Mr. Gladstone, was created 
a marquess in 1871, but the title is now without an heir. 

Lord Ripon was a pleasant-looking man, with fat, rather 
undefined features and a bright complexion. Mr. Wolf 
calls him " of an unmasculine spirit, shallow and smug. . . . 
With all Sidmouth's mediocrity and appetite for place, he 
had none of his courage and consistency. "f Gladstone, 
who was his Vice-President at the Board of Trade from 
1841-1843, had but a poor opinion of his talents. " In a 
very short time," he says, " I came to form a low estimate 
* Greville, ii. 367; Wolf, i. 17. f Wolf, i. 5, 14, 18. 



HIS CHARACTER 181 

of the knowledge and information of Lord Ripon."* And 
this was despite Peel's description of him as " a perfect 
master" of the subjects of commerce. f His speeches were 
shallow and diffuse, though occasionally humorous. In the 
Cabinet his indeterminate views carried little weight, and 
there is no doubt that he was regarded by many as having 
changed his colours rather too often. "His political 
convictions," in the words of Lord Crewe, "were limited 
to those announced by the diverse governments of which 
he was a member. "J 

A singularly ineffective Prime Minister, Ripon lacked 
all the qualities of leadership. Disraeli called him " a 
transient and embarrassed phantom. "§ Amiable and dis- 
tracted, he was never strong enough for the places he filled, 
and his want of character made his political vagaries seem 
those of a trimmer. Yet from a material point of view 
he cannot be reckoned unsuccessful. The younger son of 
a recently ennobled race, of limited means and intelligence, 
less application and no particular policy, he was for thirty 
years in office and for twenty a member of the Cabinet. 
He achieved an earldom and a Carter, and rose to be Prime 
Minister of England. His name has thus the permanent 
honour of being included in the roll of those distinguished 
statesmen who preceded and followed him. Among other 
good fortunes, he has never fallen into the hands of a 
biographer. 

* Morley, " Gladstone," i. 250. t I^^d., i. 240. 

t Times, November 22, 1921. § Buckle, ii. 282. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE HIGH TOEIES 

LIVERPOOL AND WELLINGTON 

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the predilections 
of King George III. and the genius of Mr. Pitt had firmly- 
consolidated the Tory machine. At the latter's death 
there was a momentary break, and the Whigs put up the 
best men that they could muster — Grenville's ministry of 
All the Talents. But it had the Crown and the country 
against it, it gathered no laurels, and it disappeared in 
disaster after the lapse of a twelvemonth. The reins of 
power were then again seized by the stronger party, and 
were passed on from hand to hand by a series of half a 
dozen Tory ministers who directed the affairs of the country 
with sufficient success for the next twenty years. They 
were, it is true, not a little aided by the fact that England 
was for nearly half that time engaged in a colossal war 
against a world despot, and that after his final defeat 
internal conditions at home seemed to call for a firm control. 
Opposed to them they had only the remnants of a dispirited 
and divided party, without a policy or a leader. Their 
task, therefore, was not too difficult. Few of them rose 
above a level of mediocrity, but the war was brought to a 
victorious conclusion and the business of State was con- 
ducted with some degree of progress. These results were 
due in the main to the common sense and sound ruling of 
two men — one a civilian, the other a soldier. They 
realized that the body politic needed a rest, and they were 
content to pursue the golden mean, to advance at the pace 
of the slowest arm and to avoid adventures either at home 
or abroad. 

182 




2'. Lawrence pinx. 



ROBERT JENKINSON 

2nd earl of LIVERPOOL 



To face page 182 



EARLY LIFE 183 



I.— LIVERPOOL 



Robert Bankes Jenkinson, later styled Lord Hawkesbury 
and afterwards second Earl of Liverpool, was born on 
June 7, 1770, the elder son of Charles Jenkinson and of 
his wife Amelia, daughter of William Watts, sometime 
Governor of Bengal. The Jenkinsons were a respectable 
family of baronets dating from the Restoration. They 
had been settled in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire since 
the days of Queen Elizabeth, and had often represented the 
former county in Parliament. Their sympathies, like those 
of most of the country gentlemen in the eighteenth century, 
were on the Tory side. 

Charles Jenkinson, a younger son, was born in the reign 
of George I. A political writer of some merit he had been 
secretary to Lord Bute, and after the latter's resignation 
had become an active leader of the party known as the 
King's Friends. Appointed a Lord of the Admiralty under 
Grafton and Secretary at War under North, he joined 
Pitt's government as President of the Board of Trade, 
and held that post for many years. He was a man of 
considerable ability, though very unpopular, and was 
principally responsible for passing the commercial treaty 
with the United States. His sister was married to Mr. 
Speaker Cornwall, and he was closely connected with the 
coterie that surrounded Pitt. In 1786 he was raised to the 
peerage as Lord Hawkesbury, and three years later he suc- 
ceeded to his cousin's baronetcy. 

Robert Jenkinson had thus a good political ancestry. 
He had lost his mother at his birth, and was brought up by 
his father at Addiscombe Park, near Croydon. At fourteen 
he went to Charterhouse, and thence on to Christ Church, 
Oxford. His father watched his school and university 
career with attention, and Jenkinson seems to have 
profited from his advice. Livy, which he called '' a 
lounging book,"* and Plato were his classical favourites, 
but politics were even then his chief interest. He was 

* Yonge, i. 9. 

13 



184 LIVERPOOL 

studious and had not many intimates, his principal friends 
being Granville Leveson-Grower, afterwards Lord Gran- 
ville, and George Canning. 

In 1789 he went abroad, and spent three important years 
in travelling through France, Germany, the Netherlands 
and Italy, where he learnt much of the politics and some- 
thing of the language of those countries. During this time 
he was elected to Parliament as member for Appleby, a 
seat which he subsequently exchanged for Rye. Like Pitt, 
he thus came into Parliament under the auspices of the 
Lowthers and for the same borough. His maiden speech 
was on the Russian armament question, and it left a 
remarkable impression. Pitt described it as " not only a 
more able first speech than had ever been heard from a 
young member, but one so full of philosophy and science, 
strong and perspicuous language, and sound and con- 
vincing arguments, that it would have done credit to the 
most practised debater and the most experienced statesman 
that ever existed.''* This was high praise even from a 
Prime Minister about the son of his colleague. 

In 1792 Jenkinson was again on the Continent, and his 
letters show the industry and discrimination with which he 
informed himself on foreign questions. At the end of 
that year he spoke against parliamentary reform and in 
general support of the anti-revolutionary measures of Pitt. 
Shortly afterwards he was given a seat at the India 
Board. 

The French War had now begun, and all good Tories 
turned to arms. Jenkinson became colonel of the Cinque 
Ports Fencible Cavalry, a regiment of yeomanry, and for 
several years he did not attend much in Parliament, being 
detained by his garrison duties in Scotland and elsewhere. 
This exile he did not always appreciate. He writes from 
Dumfries: " The style of living here is rather gross though 
very hospitable. The servants are few and very dirty; 
but there is a great quantity of meat put upon the table, 
and after dinner the bottle passes rather quicker than I 
like."t 

* Jennings, 204. f Yonge, i. 35. 



SECRETARY OF STATE 185 

In 1795 lie married Lady Louisa Hervey, daughter of 
Frederick, fourth Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, 
and sister of Lady Elizabeth Foster, afterwards Duchess 
of Devonshire. This alliance materially benefited his 
position. 

In 1796 Jenkinson and his father were strongly opposed 
to Pitt's policy of admitting American ships to the West 
Indian islands, and there was some talk of their resigning. 
They remained on, however, and as an additional hallmark 
on their loyalty an earldom wa.s given to the father and the 
well-paid office of Master of the Mint (£3,000 a year) to the 
son. Lord Hawkesbury, as he was henceforward known, 
had by his travels and speeches acquired the reputation of 
being an authority upon foreign affairs ; and though during 
the next few years he was not often heard in the House of 
Commons, this knowledge was to stand him in good stead. 
When Pitt resigned in 1801 he pressed his friends to remain 
on in the government, and in the transfer of of&ces which 
ensued on the formation of Addington's Cabinet Hawkes- 
bury was made Foreign Secretary in succession to Gren- 
ville. He was only thirty years of age, and though he had 
been some time in a minor office, such promotion was an 
exceptional compliment. 

His first business was the conclusion of peace with 
France, a thorny and devious task in which he acquitted 
himself with credit. In 1803, at Addington's wish, though 
not apparently at his own, he was called up to the House 
of Lords in his father's barony, and on Pitt returning to 
power the next year he exchanged the Foreign for the 
Home Office, with the lead in the Upper House. This 
rapid advance, however well merited, was the cause of some 
jealousy, and there was a certain coolness with his friend 
Canning, but the misunderstanding was settled amicably. 
Shortly afterwards Haw^kesbury was the means of bringing 
together Pitt and Addington, who had latterly been 
estranged. His conduct on this occasion showed much 
sense and tact^ and increased the regard he already enjoyed 
in the Cabinet. The King acknowledged his good offices 
with gratitude. 



186 LIVERPOOL 

" Windsor Castle, 

" December 24, 1804. ^ 

" The King has the greatest satisfaction in expressing to 
the Lord Hawkesbury his thorough approbation of the 
judiciousness and fairness of his conduct in the arduous task 
of bringing Messrs. Pitt and Addington together, who both 
are certainly attached to His Majesty, and that will be the 
real bond of their union and will rekindle in their breasts the 
friendship which has from a very early age consolidated 
them, and which false friends and backbiters had for a time 
apparently destroyed, but there is good reason to believe 
had not really eflected. The King is most desirous to 
know how the meeting ended yesterday and whether Lord 
Hawkesbury augurs well from his first interview. 

" George R."* 

Hawkesbury, like his recent predecessors, Addington 
and Pitt, and like the earlier Tory ministers, Bute and 
North, was personally not unacceptable to George HI., 
and to this fact some, at any rate, of his political success was 
undoubtedly due. 

In 1806 Pitt died. The King pressed Hawkesbury to 
take the premiership, but he refused, for he knew himself 
unable as yet to keep a strong government together. He 
accepted, however, the place of Lord Warden of the Cinque 
Ports before going into opposition. On Fox's death later 
in the year. Lord Grenville was generally credited with the 
intention of dissolving Parliament, a move which it was 
thought would benefit his party. On hearing of this 
Hawkesbury, it is said, although he was not in ofiice, 
wrote direct to the King and urged him not to consent. 
When the Whig ministry was shortly afterwards dismissed, 
the King again desired Hawkesbury to become Prime 
Minister, but the Tory party had settled that the Duke of 
Portland should be their nominal leader, and Hawkesbury 
accordingly returned to his old place as Home Secretary. 
A year later, in 1808, he succeeded his father as Earl of 
Liverpool, and then moved to Fife House, Whitehall. 

* Yonge, i. 176. 



PRIME MINISTER 137 

In 1809, on Portland's resignation, there was again a 
chance of his assuming the lead of the government, but 
this time it was given to Perceval. Liverpool took over 
the Secretaryship of War and the Colonies, at that moment 
perhaps the most important place in the Cabinet. He was 
thus the responsible minister during the Peninsular 
campaigns of the Duke of Wellington, with whom he was 
in close and constant correspondence. There is little doubt 
that his knowledge, his understanding and his application 
to business rendered real service to the country throughout 
the next few years. The experience which he had gained 
in the different departments of State had by now so in- 
creased his reputation that when in May 1812 Perceval 
was assassinated, both the Regent and the Cabinet came 
to the conclusion that Liverpool alone could carry on the 
government. He was accordingly appointed First Lord of 
the Treasury, being then just forty- two years of age. 

The ministers were almost at once beaten on a vote of 
want of confidence. They offered their resignation, and 
the Regent made two attempts to form an administration 
with Lords Wellesley and Moira. Neither succeeded, and 
by June Liverpool was definitely Prime Minister, an office 
which he was to hold for fifteen years. Shortly afterwards 
the House of Commons afi&rmed their support of his 
Cabinet by a large majority. Indeed, it was difficult to 
question his fitness for his new post, though he was still 
little known outside England. It was about this time that 
Madame de Stael asked him, " What had become of that 
very stupid man, Mr. Jenkinson?"* Writing to the Duke 
of Wellington two days after his appointment, he says : 

" With respect to myself I feel placed in a most arduous 
and difficult situation from which I should have been most 
happy on many accounts to have been relieved ; but could 
not under the circumstances have shrunk from it with 
honour, and I owe it now to the Prince to use my best 
endeavours for carrying on his government." f 

Liverpool now strove in a long series of letters to bring 
Canning back into office, but Canning remained impractic- 
* Earle, ii. 136. f Yonge, i. 399. 



188 LIVERPOOL 

able, and would not admit Castlereagli's right to lead in the 
Commons. A new minister, however, was appointed Chief 
Secretary for Ireland. This was Peel, and a letter of 
Liverpool's shows the early press.ge he had formed of his 
talents. Writing to the Duke of Eichmond, then Lord- 
Lieutenant, he says: " He has a particularly good temper 
and great frankness and openness of manners, which I 
know are particularly desirable on your side of the water."* 

Although the ministry had made an unpromising start, 
it soon became exceptionally powerful and permanent. 
After terminating successfully the greatest war that England 
had ever waged, it devoted itself to dealing with the 
difficulties that ensued at home. In the multifarious work 
of government Liverpool showed his knowledge and ability. 
His despatches are all lucid and definite, and he appears 
to have informed himself in detail on nearly every subject 
before him. He spoke continually in Parliament, where 
he was distinguished by his moderation of temper and his 
fairness to his adversaries. 

There were many questions to take in hand. The position 
of the Princess of Wales, the Orders in Council, the Con- 
gress of Vienna, Napoleon's escape from Elba and the 
abolition of the slave trade successively occupied his 
attention. By 1816 conditions in the United Kingdom 
had become serious. The distress arising from heavy 
taxation, unemployment and the depression of trade called 
for speedy remedies and a far-sighted policy. Finance and 
Ireland were continual troubles and throughout Europe 
democracy was rising to view. Liverpool had at last 
succeeded in inducing Canning to join the government as 
President of the Board of Control, and the latter 's reputa- 
tion for liberal views gave the ministers an accession of 
popularity. This was needed owing to the strong measures 
which they were soon obliged to take at home. In 1817, 
during the disorders and riots which occurred all over the 
country, Liverpool did not hesitate to act rapidly and 
firmly. He insisted on the peace being kept, called out the 
troops and suspended the Habeas Corpus Act. Later on 
* Yonge, i. 425, 426. 



HIS ADMINISTEATION 189 

the Manchester riots were met by the Six Acts, though 
the ministers acquired thereby the name of reactionaries. 
Liverpool's good relations with Grenville and other 
Opposition leaders enabled him, however, to get a fairly 
general support for his measures. In another direction, 
the resumption of cash payments, a financial policy was 
followed, at PeeFs advice, which was no less decided and 
perhaps more beneficial. 

In 1820 George III. died, and the new reign began with 
Queen Caroline's trial. It damaged the government 
considerably. Canning had resigned, but two years later 
he was appointed to the Foreign Ofiice in the place of 
Castlereagh. This important post gave him a strong 
position, and he soon began to take a more prominent place 
in the Cabinet. 

In 1821 Liverpool had lost his wife, and a year later 
he had married Mary, daughter of Charles Chester and niece 
of Lord Bagot. His health was failing, largely from the 
effects of overwork, for he had been the active spirit and 
presiding genius of the government in its foreign and 
domestic policy ever smce its formation. Now, however, 
he allowed himself to be influenced by the Canningite section 
and remitted some of his supervision of the conduct of 
business. The remaining years of his ministry were com- 
paratively quiet. He was interested in Catholic relief and 
in modifying the Corn Laws; and showed a real wish for 
progress, relying largely on Canning's advice and help ; but 
latterly jealousies arose in the Cabinet which worried him 
not a little, and it was said that Canning's intrigues hastened 
his illness. Throughout the year 1826 he had been ailing, 
and in February 1827 he had a serious attack of apoplexy, 
followed by dropsy. Two months later he resigned, and 
then remained in a state of paralysis until his death on 
December 4, 1828. He left no issue, and was succeeded in 
the title by his half-brother. 

As a young man Liverpool was distinctly handsome, 
tall, slender and graceful, with an engaging air. In later 
life the cares of office stamped their marks upon his face, 
but though his expression had hardened, his broad brow and 



190 LIVERPOOL 

thoughtful gaze showed his calm and even character. He 
was a thoroughly sensible, well-informed man. Backward 
on some points such as Catholic emancipation, forward 
on others like Free Trade, he was always logical and fair. 
In literature and art he took considerable interest, and his 
knowledge of history was wide. He was a firm believer in a 
fixed and permanent government (like his own). Writing 
to Croker in 1824, he says: 

" The works of Burke . . . contain the whole strength 
and secret of the Whig cause. ... I look to him as 
one of the great oracles of my country. . . . 

" The real cause of the continued agitated state of men's 
minds for the first few years of the late King's reign was 
that the Government was changed almost every year, and 
perpetual changes had the effect naturally of destroying all 
confidence. No one knew on what he had to rely. This 
continued till Lord North came to the head of Government. 
Lord North, though a man of very considerable talents, 
was by no means qualified for the situation, and never 
wished to have been in it; yet he had a very strong Govern- 
ment when the American War began in 1774, and it continued 
so for several years. 

" It is a curious historical fact that Queen Elizabeth, 
who bears the character of a capricious woman, was the 
most steady Sovereign in her politics that ever filled a 
throne; she knew when she was well served, and kept the 
same Minister for more than forty years."* 

A recent critic, Mr. Alington, says of LiverpooFs 
administration : " The period is one of typical Tory 
government; uninspired by large ideas, but fruitful in 
useful reform — the eminently characteristic reward of a 
Prime Minister at once so useful and so uninspiring as Lord 
Liverpool. ''t " A Lord Liverpool,'" Bagehot remarks, " is 
better in everyday politics than a Chatham. "J 

But although Liverpool was no genius, he was equally 
far from being a dullard, and the name of the " arch- 
mediocrity " which has so often been applied to him imputes 
an inefficiency which he was far from displaying. 

* Croker, i. 270. f Alington, 87. J Bagehot, " Tlie Cabinet." 



HIS CHARACTER 191 

Of his private life little is known. His friends were few, 
for lie was a nervous and retiring man. To George III. he 
was sympathetic, but the Prince Regent never liked him, 
though he had to recognize his value. Brougham says that 
" No minister ever passed his time with so little ill-will 
directed towards himself, had so much forbearance shown 
him upon all occasions, very few enjoyed so large a share 
of personal esteem."* A firm but quiet man, well equipped, 
industrious, calm and cautious, he was neither a pusher 
nor yet a sluggard, but was content to take things as they 
came without striving to anticipate them. Through some 
of the most eventful and difficult years in the history of 
England he was thought the fittest man to direct her 
fortxmes. He attempted no brilliant feats himself, but 
he chose his subordinates with discrimination and skill, 
and was able to turn the talents of a Wellington, a Canning 
or a Peel, in the right direction and to the best advantage. 

" Moderation and judgment," says Lord Morley, " are 
for most purposes more than the flash and the glitter even 
of the genius. "t Liverpool was essentially a man of these 
qualities, and by their exercise he successfully maintained 
the balance of the State through a long and hazardous 
epoch and gave it time to recover its equipoise. 

II.— WELLINGTON 

The Hon. Arthur Wellesley, afterwards first Duke of 
Wellington, was born in Dublin on April 29, 1769 — though 
some authorities say at Dangan Castle on May l.J He 
was the fourth son of Garret, first Earl of Mornington, by 
Anne Hill, daughter of Arthur, first Viscount Dungannon. 
His grandfather, Richard Colley, came of a family which 
had been settled at Castle Carbery, in county Kildare, since 
the days of the Tudors. Several of them had sat in 
Parliament, but otherwise they had attained no special 
distinction. In 1728 Richard Colley succeeded to the 
estates of his connections, the Wesleys or Wellesleys, and 

* Jennings, 204. t Morley, " Study of Literature." 

J Mr, Gibbs says on board ship between Holyhead and Kingstown. 



192 WELLINGTON 

then adopted that name. Eighteen years later he was 
raised to the Irish peerage, and in 1760 his son was advanced 
to an earldom. The latter, though little known as a 
politician, was an agreeable and hospitable man who was 
much devoted to music. He died in 1781, at the age of 
forty-hve, leaving a family of six sons, three of whom 
attained high distinction in the public service. 

In the year of his father's death Arthur Wellesley was 
sent to Eton with his younger brother Gerald. He remained 
there until 1784, and then went to on Angers in France, 
where there was an excellent military college. Just before 
he was eighteen he received his first commission in the 
73rd Kegiment, being promoted lieutenant shortly after- 
wards. In 1790 he was elected member of the Irish 
Parliament for Trim, a pocket borough under the control 
of his eldest brother, and was appointed an aide-de-camp 
to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. A year later he got his 
company, and in 1793 he became successively major and 
lieutenant-colonel of the 33rd Foot — so rapid could pro- 
motion be under the old system of exchange and purchase. 
" The great Duke himself," says Thackeray, " was a dandy 
once, and jobbed on, as Marlborough did before him.''* His 
political work was unimportant. He occasionally spoke, 
but not with much effect, and he was principally occupied 
with the pleasant duties of the Viceregal Court. 

In 1794 the French War began. Wellesley took his 
battalion successfully through the Flanders campaign, and 
showed courage and capacity as a leader. Three years 
later he was sent with them to India, where his brother, 
Lord Mornington, had just been made Governor-General. 
He now had real opportunities of displaying his military 
talents. He rose to the occasion. In a series of campaigns 
he brilliantly distinguished himself, and had risen to the 
rank of major-general by 1799. Five years later he was 
made a Knight of the Bath, after the victory of Assaye. 
When he returned to England in 1805 he was a famous 
soldier, for it was recognized that, however much influence 
might have opened the way, genius alone could have main- 
tained such a career. 

* Thackeray, " Book of Snobs." 



IN THE PENINSULA 193 

He next received command of a brigade in Sussex, and 
was soon afterwards elected to the British Parliament for tlie 
borough of Eye. Early in 1806 he married Lady Catherine 
Pakenham, daughter of Edward, second Lord, and sister 
of Thomas, second Earl of Longford. It is said that this 
marriage was more determined by his respect for an old 
promise than by any very deep attachment. 

In the next year, on the Duke of Portland coming into 
power, Wellesley was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, 
though he stipulated that this office should " not impede 
nor interfere with his military promotion or pursuits."* 
Accordingly, a few months later he was sent on the 
Copenhagen expedition, and for his conduct in this cam- 
paign he was on his return publicly thanked in his place 
in the House of Conunons. 

In 1808 he was promoted lieutenant-general and given 
command of the troops to be sent to the Spanish Peninsula. 
At first he had difficulties, for he was hampered by his 
instructions and his colleagues, but after a short super- 
session he returned to Portugal in 1809 and began a long 
and eventually victorious struggle against the marshals of 
Napoleon. In that year, having driven Soult out of Oporto 
and won the battle of Talavera, he was created Viscount 
Wellington. The next year he was compelled to fall back 
on the lines of Torres Vedras. His task was not easy; 
he had superior forces against him, and he was much 
troubled by lack of confidence both in his own army and 
in the ministry at home. But by consummate patience, 
courage and strategy, he was able to triumph over these 
obstacles and, advancing again in 1812, he stormed Ciudad 
EiOdrigo, won the battles of Salamanca and Badajoz and 
entered Madrid. He had already been promoted general, 
and for these services he was now successively raised to 
an earldom and a marquessate. During the following year 
he succeeded in crushing Joseph Bonaparte at Vittoria and 
drove the French across the Pyrenees, receiving for this a 
field-marshars baton and the Garter. In 1814 he invested 
Bayonne, defeated Soult at Toulouse and successfully 
terminated the war. He was then created Duke of Welling- 

* Maxwell, i. 223. 



194 WELLINGTON 

ton and appointed Ambassador in Paris. On his return to 
England he received addresses of thanks from both Houses 
of Parliament, with the estate of Strathfieldsaye and grants 
of money amounting to £500,000. 

Wellington was now sent to Vienna to attend the Congress 
for the reconstruction of Europe, but Napoleon's escape 
from Elba early the next year brought him back to England. 
He assumed command of the allied forces, met the Emperor 
in Flanders and finally defeated him on the field of Waterloo 
on June 18, 1815. This terminated his active military 
career, which had been accomplished in eighteen years' 
service and by the time he was forty-six. His rise in reputa- 
tion, rank and fortune had surpassed that of any military 
leader since Marlborough, and his achievements were not 
less than his rewards. The remainder of his life was to be 
devoted to diplomacy and politics. 

After remaining in France until the government of the 
Bourbons was re-established, Wellington returned again to 
England and joined the Cabinet as Master- General of the 
Ordnance. Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, was an old 
friend, a man of his own age and views, who had been 
Secretary for War during his early campaigns in Spain. 
Considerable sympathy existed between them, and the 
popular Duke's strong Tory and aristocratic leanings 
strengthened the administration. In 1820 and 1822 he 
attended the Congresses at Vienna and Verona, where his 
prestige and experience were of high value. In the latter 
year he was somewhat alienated from the government by 
the appointment of Canning as Foreign Secretary, for he 
distrusted Canning personally and disliked his democratic 
ideas. He was in little sympathy with the recognition of 
the Spanish- American Republics or the liberation of Greece, 
though he did not carry his opposition to the point of 
leaving the government. But on Canning becoming Prime 
Minister in 1827 Wellington resigned his place in the 
Cabinet, as well as the post of Commander-in-Chief to 
which he had recently been appointed. Three months 
later, however, on Canning's death, he resumed the latter 
office under Goderich. At this time the Tories had hoped 



PEIME MINISTER 195 

that Wellington would become Premier. They were dis- 
appointed, but they had not long to wait. The new 
government was already moribund, and when, early in 
1828, Goderich was obliged to retire, Wellington reluctantly 
agreed to succeed him. It was on this occasion that he 
found George IV. in bed at Windsor " dressed in a dirty 
silk jacket and a turban nightcap, one as greasy as the 
other." The King's first words to him were " Arthur, 
the Cabinet is defunct,"* and he then proceeded to mimic 
their resignation with the levity they seemed to deserve. 

In forming his ministry Wellington took as his Home 
Secretary and principal lieutenant Peel, of whom he had the 
highest opinion. His government was strong, but the 
power of the Whigs was now increasing, and on Peel's advice 
Wellington proposed and carried a sweeping measure of 
Catholic relief, of which he personally disapproved. In- 
deed much of the policy he had to pursue was distasteful 
to him, and he disliked the position which he held. He 
considered that he was not qualified for it, and that he had 
accepted it at the greatest " personal and professional 
sacrifice," for he had had to give up the command of the 
army, which did not again revert to him for fifteen years. 

In 1829 he was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque 
Ports, and for the remainder of his life he lived as much at 
Walmer as at Strathfieldsaye, which was too large and 
expensive a place for his means. 

His government was not popular. The Canningites had 
left it, it consisted almost entirely of the highest Tories and 
its views were thoroughly reactionary. Yet it was opposed 
by many of the ultra-Protestants, and on account of the 
attacks made against him as intending to introduce Popery, 
the Duke was compelled to fight his only duel. It was with 
Lord Winchilsea, and was a bloodless encounter. When, 
on George IV. 's death, the question of parliamentary 
reform again came to the fore, the Duke took the oppor- 
tunity of asserting that the " legislature and system of 
representation deservedly possessed the full and active 
confidence of the country, "f This finished the ministry. 
* Jennings, 248. f " Annual Register," 1830, 154. 



196 WELLINGTON 

Shortly afterwards a motion was carried against him on 
the Civil List, and in November 1830 he resigned, and was 
succeeded by Lord Grey. 

In the Reform Bill debates Wellington took a prominent 
part in opposition, and in the spring of 1831 the windows 
of Apsley House were broken by the mob. The Duke 
then put up the iron shutters which are still to be seen. 
At this period he passed through a phase of great odium. 
In the Sunday Times of October 16, 1831, it is stated that 
" The Duke of Wellington was hung in effigy on Monday 
morning in King Street, Seven Dials ; and at the expiration 
of an hour was cut down." It was not long, however, 
before he recovered his old popularity. 

In May 1832 Grey resigned on a defeat in the Lords, 
and Wellington was again asked to form a government. 
He failed, and Grey returning to office the Reform Bill 
was finally passed, Wellington abstaining from voting at 
the King's request and advising his friends to do the same. 

Two years later, on Lord Melbourne's dismissal, in 1834, 
Wellington took over the government pending Sir Robert 
Peel's return from Italy. He was gazetted First Lord of 
the Treasury and sworn in as Secretary of State, and in 
this capacity he transacted by himself nearly all the political 
business of the country for three weeks. On Peel's arrival 
Wellington became Foreign Secretary, and so remained 
until the ministry resigned a few months later. 

He had now attained a position never before occupied 
by a subject. He had been Commander-in-Chief, Prime 
Minister and Foreign Secretary, while he held numerous 
other offices, such as Chancellor of Oxford University, 
lord-lieutenant of Hampshire, Master of the Trinity 
House, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Ranger of 
the Royal Parks. He was the greatest captain of the age, 
the victor of Waterloo. His prestige on the Continent 
was as high as it was in England, and the mere weight of 
his name could almost make or mar a ministry. 

In 1831 he had lost his wife with whom he had never got 
on particularly well. His health had begun to cause him 
trouble, for he suffered from epileptic fits, which were 



LATER LIFE 197 

often brought on by abstention from food for as many as 
twenty-four hours. But his life was as regular as it was 
abstemious, and he devoted himself with the closest atten- 
tion to his many duties, of which politics was only one. 

In 1837 King William died, and to the young Queen 
Victoria, Wellington became a constant and loyal personal 
adviser. He invariably subordinated party to national 
considerations, and his plain and honest counsel was nearly 
always wise. For six years he remained in opposition, but 
in 1841, on Sir Robert Peel returning to office, he rejoined 
the Cabinet as leader in the House of Lords, though without 
taking the control of any department. The year afterwards 
he was reappointed to the command of the army, which had 
again become vacant. Through the long Corn Law debates 
he firmly supported his leader, in whom he trusted and 
whose policy he was always ready to accept. " The Queen's 
government," he used to say, " must be supported."* That 
was his watchword through life. 

In 1846, on Peel's leaving ofiice, Wellington began to 
take less part in politics, though he still attended regularly 
to his work at the Horse Guards and his other offices. 
During the Chartist riots in 1848 Macaulay describes his 
consultation with the Cabinet on the means to be taken for 
the protection of London as the '' most interesting spectacle 
he had ever witnessed, "f To the very end his opinion was 
continually sought by the Queen, her ministers and the 
nation, and when, in 1852, he died suddenly at Walmer, 
his death was regarded as a loss to the whole people. He 
received a public funeral and was buried with almost regal 
magnificence in St. Paul's Cathedral. His titles took a 
page of print. In addition to his English honours, he was 
a prince in the Netherlands, a duke in France, Spain and 
Portugal, a marshal in seven European countries and a 
knight of twenty-four orders of chivalry. He left several 
children; the present peer is his grandson. 

TJie Duke of Wellington was of medium height, spare 
and erect, with a hawklike nose and bright piercing eyes. 
He had a firm resolute step, and his activity and personal 
* Jennings, 251. f " Nat. Biog.," k. 201. 



198 WELLINGTON 

endurance, both physical and mental, were phenomenal. 
In dress he was remarkably neat and particular. He 
always rode if he could and hunting was his favourite 
amusement. He hardly ever gambled. Books he read a 
good deal, his favourite authors being simple and direct 
narrators of fact — Csesar, Hume, Clarendon, Gibbon and 
Adam Smith. French and Spanish he knew well, and he 
was a firm believer in the need of a general education for 
officers. He was extremely courteous and precise, though 
his language always retained a flavour of the camp. As he 
became very deaf and spoke very loud in later life, his 
conversation was occasionally rather disconcerting. The 
charms of ladies he appreciated, and Mrs. Arbuthnot and 
Lady Shelley were among his most intimate friends. Of 
men, his favourite associates in old age were Croker and 
Peel. 

Wellington's principal characteristics were simplicity and 
strength. He was manly, straightforward, public-spirited, 
self-reliant and full of nervous energy, with a strong will, 
a lively and quick temper and an active, busy mind. 
Always looking to the future, he had little sentiment and 
hardly any sympathy for weakness. 

Of his abilities as a soldier there is no question. He 
was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant military leaders 
in history. Yet he was a lover of peace. " A great 
country," he used to say, " ought not to make little wars."* 
" He excelled," says Lord Roberts, " in that coolness of 
judgment which Napoleon described as the foremost quality 
of a general."! Of Waterloo he used to say: " I never con- 
templated a retreat on Brussels. Had I been forced from 
my position I should have retreated to my right, towards 
the coast, the shipping and my resources . . . my plan 
was to keep my ground till the Prussians appeared and then 
to attack the French positions — and I executed my plan." J 
Massena he thought the best of the French marshals. " I 
always found him," he said, " where I least desired that 
he should be."§ 

As a politician — and he was occupied with politics for 
* Gleig,493. t "Nat.Biog.,"lx.203. J Gleig,429. § Ibid., 4:28. 




J. Lilley 'pinx. 



J. Scott sc. 



ARTHUR WELLESLEY 

DUKE OF WELLINGTON 



Tojacepaye IPS 



HIS CHARACTEE 199 

two -thirds of his life — Wellington's career was mucli less 
successful. He had neither the wish nor the tempera- 
ment to become a party leader He was a poor speaker, 
for his articulation was indistinct and his delivery too 
vehement. Like Pitt, he was a Tory of the deepest 
dye, the " child and champion of aristocracy.'' His sayings 
illustrate his political views. Writing of Italy in 1811, he 
says: "Trust nothing to the enthusiasm of the people. 
Give them a strong and a just and if possible a good 
government, but above all a strong one."* Of Ireland : 
" Shew me an Irishman and I'll shew you a man whose 
anxious wish it is to see his country independent of Great 
Britain. "f Of parliamentary reform : *' It would rob the 
upper classes of the political influence which they derive 
from their property and possibly eventually of the property 
itself." J Of diplomacy : " I have no time to do what is not 
right."§ 

He was a lucid and pithy writer. His military despatches 
were fine examples of strong and sensible English, and he 
used to say in later life, " I can't think how the devil I 
could have written them." " His Cabinet papers," said 
Peel, " were marked by comprehensiveness of view, sim- 
plicity and clearness of expression and profound sagacity."! | 

Wellington was ambitious, though first of all he wished 
to do his duty to his country. " I propose to get into 
fortune's way," was one of his early remarks, and his 
motto was Virtutis fortuna comes. ^ In all his hopes he 
prospered, for " his name," said Palmerston, " was a tower 
of strength abroad and his opinions and counsel were 
valuable at home. No man ever lived or died in the 
possession of more unanimous love, respect and esteem from 
his countrymen."** 

Apart from his military victories, Wellington's greatest 
gift to humanity was the example he set of single-minded 
devotion to duty, with no other object in view but the 
benefit of mankind and the good government of his country. 

* Nat. Biog., Ix. 193. f Ibid., 194=. f Ibid., 198. 

§ Jennings, 252. || Parker, ii. 535. 

f Nat. Biog., Ix. 203. ** Ashley, ii. 250 (1879). 

14 



CHAPTEE X 
TOEY KEFOKMEES 

CANNING AND PEEL 

The early part of tlie reign of George III. had been an anti- 
climax of arbitrary government in England. Elizabeth 
was a despot, but her rule was even and her ministers 
permanent. The Stuarts, unstable and shifty, never took 
hold of the nation, and when the House of Hanover suc- 
ceeded to the crown they profited by the history of their 
predecessors and readily adapted themselves to the new 
constitutional system. 

The first two Georges, whatever their private faults may 
have been, were solid and sober monarchs who trusted to 
their Whig advisers and adhered to the principles of the 
Eevolution. Indeed, they had no option. But with the next 
generations fresh methods were inaugurated. George III. 
had learnt experience in a hard school, but he had also 
learnt the art of ministerial management. By the time 
that he had been twenty years on the throne he had 
acquired such political power and such an insight into men 
that no minister could stand long without him. Largely 
by his arts the Tories were firmly established. To North 
succeeded Pitt, to Pitt, Addington, Portland and Perceval 
— for the intermediate Whig ministries were so short as to 
be inconsiderable. All of these were pledged in the main 
to the King's policy and supported by the King's friends, 
and even the mighty Pitt himself, born a Whig and imbued 
with liberal tendencies, had to go down when his progressive 
pro j ects did not square with the King's views . The Eegency 
followed with the unimaginative Liverpool. In the eyes 
of the old Whigs and the new Eadicals a crisis was ap- 

200 



GEORGE III.'S POLICY 201 

proaching. Reactionary measures, they said, were carried, 
reasonable measures were refused, revolution was withstood 
by war, war was waged by press-gangs and taxes . Poverty, 
unemployment, coercion and riot ensued. At last the pot 
began to boil over, and a choice between rebellion or reform 
had to be made. 

For the old King himself the nation had always felt love 
and loyalty. He looked bluff, honest and hearty — Farmer 
George. His insanity, his family cares, even his political 
losses, had endeared him to his people all the more. But 
with the seven princes, his sons, the case was different. 
They had singularly little to recommend them. Debts, 
wine and women were their chief claims to notoriety. All 
large, healthy men, not one of them was distinguished for 
any national service of eminence or utility, and it is 
remarkable that only one has left legitimate descendants in 
the male line. Had the Salic law operated in the House 
of Hanover, a German duke would to-day be King of 
England. 

The immediate successors of George III. had to bear 
the brunt of his policy. Of these the first and the worst 
was George IV. With some abilities and the tradition of 
his father behind him, he had the advantage of inheriting 
a strong and established government. He got off with a 
liberal policy abroad and Catholic emancipation at home. 
The second to succeed was William IV., a man of re- 
markably limited education and intelligence. He came 
in at a bad moment and had to meet the full blast of the 
Reform Bill. In the circumstances he weathered it fairly 
well. The third Sovereign was a young and inexperienced 
Queen. Her lot was the repeal of the Corn Laws and the 
substitution of Free Trade for the immemorial practice of 
Protection. 

These four cardinal changes in the whole system of the 
policy of Great Britain took place in a period of less than 
twenty years and were carried out mainly by the efforts 
of four men, Canning, Grey, Peel and Russell. Two of 
them were Whigs and two were Tories. The labours of the 
first had been intermittent, and he died before they bore 



202 CANNING AND PEEL 

fruit. Those of tlie last were to some extent subsidiary, 
and their apparent effect was dissipated through a long 
and chequered career. But Grey and Peel each accom- 
plished in his own lifetime a definite work of historic 
importance to Western civilization, and the name of each 
is for ever associated with ideas which, though to many 
they then spelt disaster, stand now in the minds of all for 
freedom. 

Since the first formation of the more modern political 
parties the Whigs had always been regarded as the pro- 
tagonists of the policy of reform and the Tories of that of 
restraint. But during the closing years of the eighteenth 
century there had been an interchange of thought between 
them, and prescription had not remained so unalterably 
opposed to progress as hitherto. Like the Whigs, the 
Tories also had now got their democratic projects, and 
although in point of time the former had planned their 
reforms earlier, the latter were to have the first opportunity 
of putting their policy into practice. They had a genius 
to make the start, Canning, though it was reserved for his 
less forward successor, Peel, to accomplish the more 
apparent and more material results. These two leaders 
had by no means the same aims, and often disapproved of 
each other's methods. Both extremely clever men and 
both sprung from the middle rank of life, by temperament 
and predilections they differed immensely. Yet in the 
main their policy tended in the same direction. While the 
Whigs turned their chief attention to domestic concerns, 
the Tories were usually as much occupied with the external 
interests of England. The results achieved by the work of 
the latter made an enormous change in the outlook and 
position of their party and of their country. To the one 
they imparted a new strain of ideas which saved it from 
inanition in the next generation; to the other they gave 
fresh strength and weight in world politics and world 
commerce, which enabled it to support with ease and honour 
the approaching democratic movements abroad and the 
hardly less radical reforms at home. 



EAELY LIFE 203 



I.— CANNING 

George Canning was born in Dublin on April 11, 1770, 
the only son of George Canning, a gentleman of Garvagh, 
by Mary Anne, daughter of Jordan Costello. The Cannings 
had been settled in county Londonderry for some two 
hundred years as small squires. George Canning the elder, 
a barrister with little practice who had written a volume 
of poems, had made what his father considered an im- 
provident marriage with a penniless Irish beauty, and had 
been disinherited of his small property in consequence. He 
fell into difficulties, and died in 1771, leaving his wife and 
only child in poverty. Luckily his younger brother 
Stratford Canning, a prosperous merchant and banker in 
London, came forward and provided for their support. 
Mrs. Canning had gone on the stage, but her son was now 
sent to Eton, where he gave early promise of his future 
eminence. He was forward, industrious and clever, a good 
speaker and writer. He edited a paper called the Micro- 
cosm, made many important friends, and rose to be Captain 
of the School. In a letter written on September 27, 1786, 
he says: " I am now at the top of Eton School. I am the 
first of the Oppidants (Commoners you call them). I was 
to have been put on the foundation, but I did so much 
dislike the idea, and so evidently saw the great difference 
of behaviour and respect paid to the one situation in pre- 
ference to the other that I prevailed on my uncle (being 
aided by the advice of Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan, who gave 
their opinions in my favour) to give up the idea."* 

He went on to Christ Church, Oxford, where he distin- 
guished himself still more, winning inter alia the Chan- 
cellor's Latin Verse Prize. He professed the most liberal 
principles, and was intimate with Burke, Fox and other 
leading Whigs whom he met at his uncle's house. He also 
became a friend of Robert Jenkinson, afterwards Lord 
Liverpool, whose span of life almost exactly coincided with 
his own. With a brilliant reputation Canning then came 
* Eton Scliool Lists, xxxix. 



204 CANNING 

up to London, and in 1791 was called to the Bar at Lincoln's 
Inn and was elected to several clubs. 

The French Revolution was just rising to its height. 
Canning, although his salad views had been Whig, took 
a strong line against it. His poetry and his writings had 
brought him into notice. He was attracted to Mr. Pitt's 
policy, and Mr. Pitt wanted clever young men to help him 
in Parliament. There was more chance for a man of no 
family under the Tories than under the oligarchical Whigs, 
who could not find a place worthy of their merits even for 
Burke and Sheridan. Canning was ambitious, talented 
and not without push. He joined the party in office, his 
change in politics giving rise to the lines: 

" The turning of coats so common has grown 
That no one thinks now to attack it; 
But never yet has an instance been known 
Of a schoolboy turning his jacket."* 

A seat in Parliament was offered him by Pitt and he 
came in for Newport, in the Isle of Wight, when he was 
only twenty-three. His first speech was not particularly 
successful. It showed that lack of feeling and sincerity 
which always hampered his oratorical efforts, but it showed 
also that it was made by no ordinary man. His looks, 
his talents and his social qualities helped him on. Pitt 
took a great fancy to him, and in 1796 gave him the place 
of Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. Lord Grenville, 
Pitt's cousin, was then the Secretary of State, and for the 
next few years Canning devoted himself to the work of his 
department under an exceptionally able and well-disposed 
chief. He spoke comparatively little in the House of 
Commons, but, when he did, it was with point and spirit. 
Soon, however, he began to get restless. He felt that he 
was not advancing quickly enough, and he enlisted his 
friends' support on his behalf. His endeavours were not 
without result. In 1800 he made a fortunate marriage 
with Miss Joan Scott, a daughter of Major-General John 
Scott, of Balcomie, in Fife, and sister of Lady Titchfield, 
the wife of the Duke of Portland's heir. She was a 
* Temperley, 33 (another version). 



FOREIGN SECRETARY 205 

vigorous, intelligent woman and brought him, it is said, 
£100,000. At the same time he was given half of the 
well-paid place of Paymaster-General and sworn a privy 
councillor. His prospects looked promising, but a few 
months later Pitt resigned office on the question of Catholic 
relief and Canning, who sympathized with his leader's 
views and had become one of his closest friends, followed 
him into retirement. 

Canning now absented himself from Parliament until 
he could get a seat independent of the government, and 
coming in for Tralee in 1803 he began openly to oppose 
Addington's ministry, while he lost no opportunity of 
making matters difficult for them with Pitt and Grenville. 
He was bitter and effective, and there is little doubt that 
he largely contributed to the fall of the " Doctor " in 1804. 
On Pitt's return to power, however, he was only given the 
post of Treasurer of the Navy, considerably less than he 
might have expected. 

In 1806 Pitt died, and Canning again found himself in 
opposition, where he took the lead of the party known as 
" Mr. Pitt's friends." On two occasions in this year 
his old chief. Lord Grenville, who was now Prime Minister, 
approached him with offers of a place in the Cabinet, but 
Canning felt that any personal offer which did not also 
include his supporters must be refused. In March, 1807, the 
Whig miaistry was dismissed. The Duke of Portland formed 
a government and Canning was at once installed as Foreign 
Secretary, being then nearly thirty-seven years of age. 

Portland was old and was not a man of powerful intellect. 
He never, or hardly ever, spoke in the House of Lords after 
becoming Prime Minister. Perceval, Liverpool, Canning 
and Castlereagh, each directed their own departments, and 
there was not too much union among them, while between 
Canning and Castlereagh, the one Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, the other Secretary for War, there was jealousy 
with plenty of opportunities for disagreement. Canning's 
policy was a wonderful combination of tact and energy, 
and to his selection of Spain as a battlefield and his support 
of Wellesley as a leader against Napoleon the subsequent 



206 CANNING 

successes of England were largely due. Perhaps Ms most 
remarkable coup was despatching ships and troops to 
Denmark, with whom England was not at war, bombarding 
Copenhagen and capturing the Danish fleet. 

In 1808 took place the ill-fated despatch of General Sir 
John Moore to Corunna. It was followed a year later 
by the expedition to the Scheldt. In both these ventures 
Canning took a different view to Castlereagh as to policy 
and execution, and at last he told the Duke of Portland 
that there must be an alteration of offices or that he must 
resign. Portland, however, did nothing definite and 
eventually Canning and Castlereagh both resigned in 
September, and then fought a duel, though before they 
had actually given up the seals. This damaged them in 
public opinion, and when, a month later, Portland himself 
retired, Perceval succeeded him as Prime Minister, an 
office which Canning had coveted and had indeed offered 
the King to imdertake. " Erom the moment when Canning 
resigned office in 1809 misfortunes never ceased to fall 
thick upon him for the space of a dozen years. During this 
time he made no appreciable advance in popularity and 
lost much in dignity and power."'* 

Canning was much disappointed, but he continued to 
support the government, though remaining outside it. 
At this time he was probably the only English statesman 
of commanding ability, but his unstable and intriguing 
temper made him a difficult colleague. A few years later 
he became reconciled to Castlereagh, and in 1812 Liverpool 
offered him the Foreign Office on the condition that Castle- 
reagh was to retain the lead in the House of Commons. 
This arrangement Canning refused to accept, though he 
afterwards regretted his decision as much as did his friends. 

In 1814 a further attempt was made to conciliate him 
by offering him the embassy in Portugal, whither he was 
intending to take his eldest son for his health. This post 
he undertook, and he remained abroad for two years, visit- 
ing Paris and keeping himself well in touch with foreign 
politics. He was received in Paris, says Gronow, *' with 

* Temperley, 109. 



INDIA OFFICE 207 

a distinction and a deference perhaps never before be- 
stowed on a foreign diplomatist."* His mission to Lisbon, 
however, did not much increase his reputation, and in 1816 
he returned to England, and now at last accepted office 
as President of the Board of Control, the then India Office. 
He was elected for Liverpool, where he made the acquaint- 
ance of the Gladstone family. He stayed in his new post 
for about four years, and gained the entire confidence of the 
directors by his powerful administration. Outside his own 
department his main interest was to obtain religious 
toleration for the Catholics, a promise given to the Irish 
by his old leader which he always strove to fulfil. 

In 1820 George IV. came to the throne, and the thorny 
question of his Consort at once arose. Canning had already 
been concerned in Queen Caroline's af5^airs, and was in- 
clined to take her part. In order not to embarrass his 
colleagues, he offered to leave the government, but 
eventually he stayed on until the trial of the Queen was 
decided on. He then resigned definitely, and the King bore 
him no good-will for the line he had taken. Meanwhile 
Canning had occupied himself with securing the reversion of 
the Governor-Generalship of India, and early in 1822 this 
high position was proposed to him, and he accepted it. 
A few months later, just before he was starting for the 
East, Castlereagh's death again opened the Foreign Office, 
and after great hesitation on the King's part Canning, who 
was obviously the man for the post, was appointed. 
George IV., writing privately to Lord Liverpool, called this 
" the greatest sacrffice of my opinions that I have ever 
made in my life.'^f The royal feelings were well concealed, 
for Canning writes on September 17, "I have reason to 
be contented with the King's behaviour at our first 
interview; and I have learned from good authority that 
His Majesty professes himself to have been 'pleased and 
satisfied ' with mine. "J 

This was the period of Canning's glory, for he was 
eminently suited to his place, and in the next few years 
his best work was done. He had a firm friend in Liverpool, 
* Gronow, i. 163. f Yonge, iii. 199. % Stapleton, 363. 



208 CANNING 

and though there were at first some difficulties on his 
rejoining the Cabinet, he gradually brought the King and 
his colleagues round to his own point of view. Though a 
Tory in name, his views were liberal, and his efforts were 
all in favour of popular freedom. He successfully resisted 
the coercion of Spain by France, he procured the recogni- 
tion of the Spanish American colonies, and he was also 
largely responsible for the independence of Greece. In 
home politics he continued a strong advocate of Catholic 
emancipation and of the mitigation of the Corn Laws. 
" The business of the reformer," he said, " is to redress 
practical grievances."* 

Early in 1827 Liverpool fell seriously ill. Canning, who 
was laid up himself from a severe chill caught at the Duke 
of York's funeral, had for some time had his eye on the 
premiership. On Liverpool's illness becoming mortal, 
various moves took place between the King and Canning, 
but the latter was adroit and was determined to secure the 
succession. Eventually he was commissioned to form a 
government, and he then asked the Duke of Wellington to 
join him in the following letter : 

" Foreign Office, 

" April 10, 1827, 

" My dear Duke of Wellington, P''^' 

" The King has, at an audience from which I have 
just returned, been graciously pleased to signify to me His 
Majesty's commands to lay before His Majesty, with as 
little loss of time as possible, a plan of arrangement for the 
reconstruction of the Administration. In executing these 
commands it will be as much my own wish as it will be 
my duty to His Majesty to adhere to the principles on which 
Lord Liverpool's government has so long acted together. 
I need not add how essentially the accomplishment must 
depend upon Your Grace's continuing a member of the 
cabinet. 

" Ever, my dear Duke of Wellington, 

" Your Grace's sincere and faithful servant, 
" George Canning."! 

* Temperley, 104. f Wellington, Supp. Desp., April, 1827. 




T. Lawrence pinx. 



C, Turner sc. 



GEORGE CANNING 



To face page 20S 



PRIME MINISTER 209 

Wellington, however, had never liked Canning, and 
would not accept, alleging that the letter was not straight- 
forward, as it was, he said, written before the King had 
made any definite appointment. With Peel, he definitely 
seceded from the government and resigned his office of 
Commander-in-Chief. The feud with the Duke was never 
healed. More than three months later, and only a few 
weeks before Canning's death, the King writes to him as 
follows : 

" Dear Mr. Canning, 

" I delay not a moment in acquainting you with a 
circumstance that has just occurred very unexpectedly to 
me — a visit from the Duke of Wellington. I can only 
attribute this visit to its being the anniversary of my 
coronation. Our interview was not long, and our con- 
versation for the most part was on general topics. Of 
course it was impossible here and there, occasionally, not 
to have some reference to matters which have recently 
occurred. I found the Duke extremely temperate, but I 
could easily perceive, from little expressions which now 
and then dropped, that the most assiduous pains have been 
taken, and are still actively employed, to give the strongest 
jaundiced complexion to the past, as well as the present 
state of things, and to keep up, if not to widen as much as 
malice and wickedness can contrive it, the breach which 
exists between him and my G-overnment. I sincerely hope 
that you are rapidly recovering from the odious lumbago. 

" Believe me always, 

" Your sincere friend, 
" EoYAL Lodge, " Gr.R. 

" Thursday, July 19, 1827, 
" Half-past tivo 'p.m."*- 

Canning, however, managed to make up a ministry of his 
own and some of Lord Liverpool's followers. It was 
vehemently opposed in Parliament, and this much upset 
him. Early in July he became indisposed, largely from 
the effects of his previous chill. He went to Chiswick 

* Stapleton, 600. 



210 CANNING 

hoping to recover, but he became rapidly worse, and on 
August 8 he died. One of his last remarks was: " This 
may be hard on me, but it is harder still upon the King."* 
He was buried in Westminster Abbey; a statue was 
erected to him, and in recognition of his services a vis- 
county was conferred on his wife. He left several children, 
one of whom afterwards became Earl Canning, the cele- 
brated Viceroy of India. None of his descendants in the 
male line are now living. 

Canning was a man of fine appearance, with an ample 
forehead, an oval face and a pronounced and handsome 
profile. He was an amusing though rather a hot-tempered 
man, not unaddicted to the bottle, talkative and well 
aware of his own merits. Scott thought him " witty, accom- 
plished, ambitious." For many years he lived at the 
Albany in Piccadilly, and was a notable figure in society, 
*' The Joker " being his usual nickname. Moore called 
him " St. Stephen's fool, the Zany of debate."* With all 
his talents, he never enjoyed the full confidence of his 
colleagues, for he gave the idea of being too self-assertive 
and too self-seeking. He was difficult in the Cabinet, often 
an ungenerous opponent, and of a most sensitive and 
volatile disposition. But with many faults he was an 
orator and a statesman of the highest order, and once he 
felt that he was supreme and that his personal aims were 
not in jeopardy, " his views became far-sighted, his policy 
enlightened and his actions noble." 

" Canning," says Macaulay, " was Pitt's favourite 
disciple, young, ardent and ambitious, with great powers 
and great virtues, but with a temper too restless and a wit 
too satirical for his own happiness."! Croker, his intimate 
friend, writes to Brougham: " Poor Canning's greatest 
defect was the jealous ingenuity of his mind. Like an 
over-cautious general, he was always thinking more of what 
might be on his flanks and in his rear than in his front. 
His acuteness discovered so many tortuous by-paths on the 
map of human life that he believed they were much more 
travelled than the broad highway. He preferred an 
* Stapleton, 604. f Macaulay, vii. 401. 



HIS CHAKACTEK 211 

ingenious device for doing anything to the ordinary 
process."* 

One of his maxims was that nothing can be done without 
a great deal of pains. His speeches, of which Brougham 
said that they " came from the mouth rather than from 
the heart," were rarely spontaneous. " I prepare very 
much," he used to say, " on many subjects; a great part of 
this is lost and never comes into play; but sometimes an 
opportunity arises when I can bring in something I have 
ready, and I always perceive the much greater effect of 
these passages upon the House." Peel remarked that 
Canning before speaking would often make a sort of 
lounging tour of the House, listening to the tone of the 
observations which the previous debate had excited, so that 
at last when he himself spoke he seemed to a large part 
of his audience to be merely giving a striking form to their 
own faults." t Aberdeen, an experienced critic, preferred 
his oratory to that of either Pitt or Fox. Several of his 
phrases are famous; "If we are told we must have war 
sooner or later, I say later"; and that respecting the 
recognition of the South American Republics: "I called 
the New World into existence to redress the balance of the 
01d."+ This was typical of him, and his colleagues did 
not at all relish the personal pronoun. 

His despatches were often amusing. He once astonished 
the British Minister at The Hague by sending him a 
message which when deciphered read: 

" In matters of commerce the fault of tlie Dutch 
Is giving too little and asking too much; 
With equal protection the French are content, 
So we'll clap on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent., 
Twenty per cent., twenty per cent. 
Nous frapperons Falck with twenty per cent."§ 

Some of his early poems had been of a high level, " The 
Loves of the Triangles," " The University of Gottingen," 
and " The Candid Friend," being among the best known; 
and his caustic wit in the Anti-Jacobin did much to dis- 
credit the English extremists in 1797. Because of his 

* Croker, ii. 352. t Jennings, 220. 

I Ibid., 221. § Ibid., 222 ; Temperley, 193. 



212 CANNING 

literary talent lie was a special favourite with the Press, 
and this certainly helped to make him Prime Minister. 
Lord Holland called him " the first logician in Em-ope."* 

In politics Canning was regarded as the type of the New 
England. His lifelong fight for the relief of his fellow 
comitrymen from religious disabilities and his efforts in 
favour of popular self-government among continental 
nations had put him upon a pedestal for many of the 
reforming spirits of those ardent days. " The party of 
Mr. Canning," says Ashley, " was the party of the generous, 
brave and intellectual Englishman of the early part of the 
nineteenth century, "f His ministry, says Mr. Temperley, 
" had broken that close aristocratic clique of Tories who 
had so long monopolized power." J Yet by his contem- 
poraries he was never considered sound. Neither Welling- 
ton nor Grey trusted him, though after his death both 
Disraeli and Gladstone claimed the heritage of his name. 

He was undoubtedly an intriguer, jealous and selfish in 
temperament, but the strength of his spirit and the clearness 
of his intellect were not really much afiected by these flaws 
of character. " The gigantic mind of Mr. Canning," said 
Palmerston, " was not to be pinned down by Lilliputian 
threads." A far cleverer man than Liverpool, his friend 
and colleague, Canning achieved far less material success. 
Both died under sixty, but the brilliant and erratic genius 
was as much out of office as in, while the dull and steady 
plodder held the reins of power nearly all his days. Many 
hard things have been thought and said of Canning, but it 
must be remembered that he was a man born without 
advantages of birth or fortune, conscious of the possession of 
exceptional powers, and inspired with the determination 
to put into effect the principles of liberty to which he was 
devoted. Part of his success was posthumous, but part he 
achieved in his lifetime, though with toil, stress and disap- 
pointment. Endowed with perhaps as great natural gifts 
and as keen an ambition as any Prime Minister, he held 
that office for the shortest time of them all. 

* Creasy, 501. t AsMey, i. 125. 

t Temperley, 235. 



EARLY LIFE 213 



II.— PEEL 

Robert Peel was born at Chamber Hall, near Bury, on 
February 5, 1788, the eldest son of Robert, afterwards 
Sir Robert Peel, by Ellen, daughter of William Yates, a 
cotton manufacturer of Bury. The Peels were a Lanca- 
shire family who had been largely responsible for the 
founding of the cotton industry and its development by 
mechanical devices. In this way they had acquired a very 
considerable fortune. Robert Peel the elder then settled 
at Drayton Bassett, in Staffordshire, built Drayton Manor, 
became member of Parliament for Tamworth, and received 
a baronetcy from Pitt, whose policy he had supported. At 
the birth of his eldest son he is said to have fallen on his 
knees and dedicated him to the service of his country,* 
and in later life he used to prophesy that his son would 
never display his talents in their fullness until he held the 
supreme place. 

Young Robert Peel was sent to Harrow, and stayed there 
four years; his career was uneventful, but among his 
schoolfellows were Palmerston and Byron. He went on to 
Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a double first in 
classics and mathematics, then a most remarkable achieve- 
ment. With a brilliant reputation, he turned his attention 
to politics and in April, 1809, he was elected member for 
the pocket borough of Cashel. A year later Perceval 
appointed him to the post of Under-Secretary for the 
Colonies and War. Here his official chief was Liverpool, 
and when the latter became Prime Minister in 1812 Peel 
was promoted to be Chief Secretary for Ireland, his 
admitted abilities and his frank and open manners being 
his recommendation. In this position he remained for 
six years, pursuing a somewhat reactionary policy — 
" Orange Peel " he was called — but he got a knowledge 
of the Irish and of the Catholics from which he subse- 
quently profited. In 1817 he became member for Oxford 
University, but next year resigned his place in the govern- 
* Peel, " Private Letters," 12. 



214 PEEL 

ment, being tired of an ungrateful task. In 1819 lie served 
as chairman of the committee on the resumption of cash 
payments, and was responsible for restoring to the country 
a sound system of currency. Canning called this " the 
greatest wonder he had witnessed in the political world."* 

In 1820 Peel married Julia, daughter of General Sir John 
Floyd, and after receiving several offers of a place in the 
Cabinet at last accepted the post of Home Secretary in 
January 1822. He had by this time risen to a high 
position in the House of Commons, for he had talents, 
fortune and character. His work was excellent, and 
Canning considered him the most efficient Home Secretary 
ever known. His experiences in administration had 
gradually modified some of Peel's opinions, and he now 
concerned himself with reducing the severity of punish- 
ments imposed by old statutes, and removing restrictions 
on the liberty of the subject. It was his first move in the 
direction of reform. 

On LiverpooFs death in 1827, Peel retired from the 
Cabinet, his views on Catholic emancipation differing from 
those of Canning. During this year he succeeded in re- 
uniting the different sections of the Tory party, and in 
January 1828 he took office under the Duke of Wellington 
as Home Secretary and leader of the House of Commons. 
It was then that the Duke, who was not very sanguine about 
the success of his government, said: " How are we to get 
on with the thing ? I have no small talk and Peel has 
no manners.'"! 

Ireland was at this time on the verge of a rebellion, 
and Peel saw that a repeal of the restrictions on Catholics 
was necessary to avoid civil war. Accordingly he recon- 
sidered his position and prepared the necessary bills. 
He resigned his office and his seat in order to put himself 
straight with Parliament and his constituents. Then, 
having been reappointed and re-elected, he succeeded in 
passing his measures. "The credit," he said, "belongs to 
others and not to me. It belongs to Mr. Fox, to Mr. 
Grattan, to Mr. Plunket, to these gentlemen opposite, and 
* Parker, iii. 569. f Jennings, 260. 




./. Linnell pinx. 



J- Linnell sc. 



SIK ROBERT PEEL 



To face page 214 



HOME SECRETARY 215 

to an illustrious and right honourable friend of mine who 
is now no more/'* 

In the next two years Peel created the metropolitan 
police and framed several bills for consolidating and re- 
formiug the law, but in November 1830 the Duke's 
ministry was defeated, and Lord Grey came into ofhce. 
In the same month Peel succeeded to his father's baronetcy 
and a large income. He was now in opposition, with the 
whole strength of the Whigs and of the country pitted 
against him. But he was quick to show his mettle. He 
opposed the Reform Bill through all its debates with his 
utmost strength, and so was able to win back the Tory 
support which he had lost by his action on the Catholic 
Relief Acts. When the Whig ministers resigned in 1832 
he was asked to form a government on condition of himself 
bringing forward reform, but this he declined, preferring 
to adhere to his principles. 

The Reform Bill was passed, and nearly annihilated the 
Tories. In the first reformed parliament Peel appeared as 
member for Tamworth, at the head of a small and dispirited 
band of representatives of the old system. He at once set 
about organizing the new Conservative party. He opposed 
the extreme radicals and frequently acted with the govern- 
ment, making it clear that he was prepared to support 
moderate and reasonable progress. He had become by far 
the most important man in the House of Commons, for 
he had held office for sixteen years and had himself carried 
many really liberal measures. Greville writes of him 
in 1834: " Peel's is an enviable position; in the prime of 
life, with an immense fortune, facile 'prince'ps in the House 
of Commons, unshackled by party connections and pre- 
judices, universally regarded as the. ablest man, and with 
(on the whole) a very high character, free from the cares 
of office, able to devote himself to literature, to politics, or 
idleness, as the fancy takes him. No matter how unruly 
the House, how impatient or fatigued, the moment he rises 
all is silence, and he is sure of being heard with profound 
attention and respect."f 

* Jennings, 257. f Greville, iii. 64. 

15 



216 PEEL 

On Lord Grey's resignation in the summer of 1834, Peel 
was asked by the King to form a coalition with Melbourne. 
This he refused to do. A few months later, in November, 
Melbourne was dismissed, and Peel who was in Kome, 
was sent for by an express courier. In the interval the 
Duke of Wellington administered the government by 
himself. On December 9 Peel arrived, and was ap- 
pointed first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the 
Exchequer — the last statesman, with the exception of 
Mr. Gladstone, to combine those two offices. He at once 
dissolved Parliament, and succeeded in somewhat in- 
creasing his following at the general election, though not 
sufficiently to give him a majority. He met the House 
of Commons, but having been defeated six times in as many 
weeks, he resigned on April 8, 1835, and was replaced by a 
Whig government under Lord Melbourne. 

Peel now again became the " prudent wary leader in 
opposition." He gave his attention to the formation of a 
strong, moderate and disciplined party, whose policy was 
" to maintain intact the established constitution of church 
and state." In the next few years he attracted to his side 
Stanley, Disraeli and Gladstone, while his supporters rose 
to 320 members. His own views had enlarged, he was as 
patriotic as he was powerful, and a political opponent was 
able to declare in the House that " the right honourable 
member for Tamworth governs England."* 

In 1839 Melbourne resigned on the Jamaica question. 
Queen Victoria summoned Sir Robert Peel to form a 
government, but refused to accede to his wishes that the 
ladies of her household should be changed. As they in- 
cluded wives and daughters of his opponents, Peel felt 
bound to insist upon his request. But the Queen remained 
obdurate, and Melbourne accordingly resumed office. The 
opportunity, however, soon recurred. Early in 1841 Peel 
defeated the ministers, first on the budget and then on a 
want of confidence motion. They resigned, and he became 
Prime Minister for the second time in August of that year. 

He now formed a remarkably strong Cabinet, and at once 
concentrated upon domestic legislation. The finances of 

* Tliursfield, 163. 



PEIME MINISTER 217 

the country were in a very unsatisfactory state, with high 
duties and annual deficits. There was intense distress 
among the working classes. Chartism and anti-Corn Law 
agitation were rampant. In addition to these troubles the 
government was discredited abroad; it was at war with 
China and Afghanistan, and it had recently succeeded in 
antagonizing France and America. Peel was to show the 
stuff he was made of. 

In March 1842 he introduced his budget. It proposed 
an income tax of sevenpence in the pound and an immense 
diminution of indirect taxation. It was widely acclaimed 
in the country and the funds went up four points. During 
the five years that he was in office he continued a similar 
policy, reducing the duties on over a thousand articles 
and totally abolishing those on six hundred more. This 
was the beginning of that Free Trade which he had long 
had in view, and which he called " the progressive and 
well-considered relaxation of restrictions upon commerce."* 
Its object was to give "a new scope to commercial enter- 
prise and an increased demand for labour." Its success 
was enormous, and the Whigs, whose principles had been 
appropriated, began to fear for their future. 

Peel next reorganized the banking system of the 
country, and placed that branch of finance on a sound basis 
built up with a foundation of securities and bullion. He 
came of a family conversant with and accustomed to the 
manipulation of money; in that intricate science he had 
become an expert, and he now placed his unrivalled know- 
ledge and ability at the service of the community. 

His third task was to deal with the Corn Laws. These 
had originally prohibited the importation of foreign wheat 
except when the price had risen exceptionally high in the 
home market, though since 1828 a sliding-scale duty had 
been substituted. In 1842 Peel passed a moderate measure 
revising this scale and decreasing the price of corn. This 
created considerable consternation among his followers. 
But more was to come. In 1845 the English harvest was 
ruined, and disease of the potato crop appeared simul- 
taneously in Ireland. Famine began to spread, and Peel 
* Nat. Biog., xliv. 217. 



218 PEEL 

determined that protection for agriculture must go alto- 
gether. " The remedy," he wrote to Lord Heytesbury on 
October 15, 1845, " is the removal of all impediments to 
the import of all kinds of human food — that is the total 
and absolute repeal for ever of all duties on all articles of 
subsistence."* He proposed to act by orders in council, as 
the crisis was urgent. But the Cabinet was terrified and 
disagreed. In December Peel accordingly resigned. Lord 
John Russell tried to form a government, but failed, and 
Peel returned with all his former colleagues except Stanley. 
Parliament met in January 1846. Peel had been deserted 
by many of his own party, but he knew that he could reckon 
on sufficient support from his opponents to pass his bills. 
The time was short, but he determined to make it suffice. 
In a series of brilliant speeches he expounded the doctrines 
of Free Trade, enduring the taunts of his former friends as 
well as the attacks of his foes. But his policy triumphed. 
On June 25 the Repeal of the Corn Laws was passed by the 
Lords, and on the same night Peel was defeated on an Irish 
Coercion bill in the Commons. His final words on this 
occasion will not be forgotten. " It may be," he said, 
" that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with 
expressions of goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot 
it is to labour and to earn their daily bread by the sweat 
of their brow, when they shall recruit their strength with 
abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no 
longer leavened by a sense of injustice, "t Four days later 
he resigned his office. 

His retirement created universal consternation in Europe, 
and the revolutions which now rapidly succeeded each other 
on the Continent were probably not unconnected with it. 
It was felt that liberalism had received an almost vital 
blow and must assert itself if it was to live. 

Peel's work was now done. During the remaining few 
years of his life he led no party, but constituted himself the 
guardian of Free Trade. He refused the Garter and all other 
honours; his position in the eyes of England and of the 
world was above such distinctions. In June 1850 he was 
* Peel, "Memoirs,". 21. f Jennings, 264. 



HIS CHARACTER 219 

tkrown from his horse on Constitution Hill, and he died 
a few days later. He left five sons, one of whom became 
Speaker of the House of Commons, and he has many male 
descendants living. 

Peel had a tall and elegant figure, brown curly hair, clear 
blue eyes, a low-toned voice and a constitution so strong 
that he could work for sixteen hours a day. " His ex- 
pression was radiant," though in later life it became some- 
what careworn. Rather nervous, cold and awkward in 
manner, his memory and dramatic powers were remarkable. 
Carlyle calls him "rustic, affectionate, honest, reserved 
with a vein of mild fun." His wit, on the rare occasions 
that he chose to exercise it, was extremely apposite. Once 
when O'Connor had remarked in the House of Commons 
that he did not care whether the Queen or the Devil was 
on the throne, Peel drily replied: "When the honour- 
able gentleman sees the sovereign of his choice on the 
throne of these realms, I hope he'll enjoy and I'm sure he'll 
deserve the confidence of the Crown."* 

His early speeches were not particularly promising. A 
satire published soon after he first sat in Parliament says : 
" I give and bequeath my patience to Mr. Robert Peel; he 
will want it all before he becomes Prime Minister of 
England; but in the event of such a contingency, my 
patience is to revert to the people of England who will 
stand sadly in need of it."t His later efforts were better. 
Although long and weighty, they showed a splendid com- 
bination of argument and detail, and his words were often 
inspired with the confidence of victory. In reply he was 
prompt and discreet, though not very lively. By the deft 
lance of Disraeli he was occasionally discomforted. 

In society "if he thaws," says Greville, " he is lively, 
entertaining and abounding in anecdotes."! In art he 
took a considerable interest, and he formed a valuable 
collection of pictures. He liked the country, he managed 
his estates, he strove to be a hospitable host. But, like 
the younger Pitt, he was at his best in the House of Com- 
mons. " What he really was," said Disraeli, " and what 

* Jennings, 261. f ^^^^-^ 254. % Greville, iii. 35. 



220 PEEL 

posterity will acknowledge him to be is the greatest 
member of Parliament that ever lived."* 

A brilliant statesman and a true patriot, he was, in the 
words of Lord Morley, a man of " skill, vigilance, caution 
and courage."* Wellington, who regarded him with 
intense admiration, said: " I never knew a man in whose 
truth and justice I had a more lively confidence. "f 

In his father's opinion Peel was a Whig at heart, but the 
early disturbances of the times he lived in and his respect 
for a firm government caused him to adopt measures that 
seemed even then severe. As he gained experience and as 
his mind developed he recognized the needs and claims 
of his countrymen, and he was courageous enough to submit 
his own views to what he believed to be right, even at the 
cost of sacrificing the principles in which he had been 
educated. " England,'' he said, " is governed by public 
opinion.'' The welfare of England came first in his 
thoughts and was always the passion of his life, and he never 
allowed any consideration, not even his own consistency, to 
stand in its way. Lord Eosebery calls him " one of the 
princes of mankind."J 

Alone of all the Prime Ministers Grey and Peel achieved 
the supreme success of seeing the principal policy of their 
lives put into practice under their own auspices. Chatham, 
it is true, was able during a few brief years to contemplate 
the splendid results of his foreign victories, but in old age 
he saw his country sinking under distress. His son was 
continually concerned with defence, and nearly all the 
remaining first ministers of the Crown were so fully occupied 
in carrying on the regular business of state, that they were 
content enough if by compromise or opportune measures 
they could preserve peace and deal with the difficulties of 
the day. But Grey in his early and Peel in his later years 
each conceived a comprehensive scheme of public reform, 
vaster in scope than anything that had then been devised. 
Each was able to plan and to pass into law measures which 
their contemporaries hailed and posterity has confirmed 
as marking epochs in the history of England. 

* Jennings, 265. f "^at. Biog.," xliv. 222. 

J Rosebery, " Miscellanies," i. 188 



CHAPTER XI 
WHIG EEFOKMEKS 

GREY AND RUSSELL 

The two Whig Reformers were quite different men from 
their Tory compeers. The former stood for land and 
birth, the latter were representatives rather of brains and 
trade. Through the circumstances of their times the 
political chances of the Whigs had developed more slowly 
and later than those of their rivals. Canning and Peel were 
both members of the government when in their twenties, 
while Grey and Russell had to wait until they were near 
their fortieth year. The same tardiness pursued them 
throughout their career, for they attained Cabinet rank 
later and held office for less time than did their Tory 
opponents, though their natural lives lasted for a longer 
span. 

In some sense this backwardness and these hopes deferred 
colour all their work, great though it was. Their reforms 
are so long delayed, that they seem in a way laboured 
and antiquated when they come — they lack the dash of 
novelty and the fire of youth that Peel and Canning's 
fresh and brilliant strokes convey. While the Tory leaders 
are well in advance of their party, cheering and beckoning 
it on, the Whigs are striving to keep up with the main body 
of their followers. Yet the race is not always to the swift, 
and when the merit of either side is weighed it is hard 
indeed to say to whom the palm should fall — to the talented 
tribunes of the people or the sedate patricians of the senate, 
to the first flights of the Tories or the more wearied efforts 
of the Whigs. 

The Whigs, indeed, at the end of George IV.'s reign were 

221 



222 GREY AND RUSSELL 

in a difficult position. Hazlitt, in his essay on " The 
Jealousy and Spleen of Party," says: " The chief dread of 
the minority was to be confounded with the populace, the 
Canaille, etc. They would be neither with the Government 
nor of the People. . . . The Whigs . . . make up for 
their want of strength by a proportionable want of spirit. 
Their cause is ticklish, and they support it by the least 
hazardous means. Any violent or desperate measures on 
their part might recoil upon themselves. 

" When they censure the age 
They are cautious and sage 

Lest the courtiers offended should be." 

. . . Nothing can be too elegant, too immaculate and refined 
for their imaginary return to office. They are in a pitiable 
dilemma — having to reconcile the hopeless reversion of 
court-favour with the most distant and delicate attempts 
at popularity. . . . Neither can anything base and 
plebeian be supposed to ' come between the wind and their 
nobility." . . . The reputation of Whiggism, like that of 
women, is a delicate thing, and will neither bear to be blown 
upon nor handled."* 

Such were the inherent and the extraneous troubles that 
hampered the hereditary apostles of progress. 



I.— GREY 

Charles Grey, subsequently styled Lord Howick and 
afterwards second Earl Grey, was born at Fallodon on 
March 13, 1764, the second but eldest surviving son of 
Colonel Charles Grey of Howick by his wife Elizabeth, 
daughter of George Grey of South wick in Durham. His 
family, who had been made baronets in 1745, was one of 
the most respectable in Northumberland, being related to 
the Greys of Berwick, of Warke and of Chillingham. 
Since the days of the Border wars they had been dis- 
tiuguished in arms, and Colonel Grey had followed that 
profession through all his life with honour and success. He 
* Hazlitt, " Plain Speaker," ii. 434-436. 



EARLY LIFE 223 

Served in tlie American War and against tlie French in the 
West Indies, rose to the rank of general, was created a 
Knight of the Bath and a privy councillor, and in 1801 
was raised to the peerage. Five years later, when his son 
sat in the Grenville Cabinet, he was advanced to an earldom. 

Charles Grey the younger was educated at Eton and at 
King's College, Cambridge, where he took several prizes for 
English composition and declamation. He then travelled 
abroad for about a year, and in 1786 was elected member of 
Parliament for the county of Northumberland. Unlil^e 
the rest of his family, he became a determined Whig, and 
attached himself to Fox and the friends of the Prince of 
Wales. 

At this time Pitt was threatening the Whig territorial 
interest and to that interest Grey belonged. He had 
qualities which marked him out as likely to be a leader of 
his party. He was remarkably tall and good-looking, and 
soon became a friend of many of the Whig ladies, especially 
of the Duchess of Devonshire . His manners were attractive 
and his abilities above the ordinary. His first speech was 
an unqualified success, for he spoke '' clearly, easily and 
correctly, with dignity, simplicity and grace." But he 
lacked wit and suavity, and was often too lofty and severe. 
From the first he set his face against the government and 
all their works. He began by attacking the French com- 
mercial treaty and next the patronage of ministers. Against 
Pitt he specially directed himself, and in the debates on 
the debts of the Prince of Wales and on the management of 
the Post Office he showed exceptional vehemence and 
acrimony. This did not do him very much good, though 
his ability was unquestioned. " Grey's eloquence," says 
Wraxall, " excited greater admiration than either his 
display of judgment or command of temper."* He also 
took part in the impeachment of Warren Hastings, where 
" his eloquence, youth and figure attracted a numerous 
audience."! 

When the French Revolution broke out, Grey sided with 
the more advanced Whigs and strongly opposed Pitt's war 
* Wraxall, "Post. Mem.," ii. 353. f Ihid., iii. 45. 



224 GEEY 

policy. At the same time lie began to interest himself in the 
question of parliamentary reform, to which he remained 
devoted all his life. He helped to start the " Society of 
Friends of the People," a somewhat factious organization 
for promoting constitutional change, which was largely 
used as a political weapon. Grey presented some of its 
petitions to Parliament, but he afterwards rather regretted 
his connection with it. " One word from Fox," he used 
to say as an old man, " would have kept me out of all that 
mess of the Friends of the People."* It was not until 1797 
that he brought in his first bill for Parliamentary Reform, 
which was defeated by 165 votes in a House of 350. 

In 1794 he had married Elizabeth Ponsonby, daughter of 
William, afterwards first Lord Ponsonby. This alliance 
brought him into close touch with many of the leading Irish 
Liberals, and for the next few years he remained an active 
and constant opponent of the government, questioning 
their policy, moving for papers and dividing against them. 
But as regards the war with France, once it had begun, he 
supported vigorous measures. 

On the rejection of his Reform Bill in 1797 he seceded 
from the House of Commons except for the purpose of re- 
sisting the Union with Ireland. It is doubtful whether these 
tactics did him much good. " Secession," Lord Shelburne 
remarked, " either means rebellion or it is nonsense."! 
Grey, however, was not at all sorry of an excuse for keeping 
away from Parliament. Hitherto he had lived mostly in 
Hertford Street, Mayfair, or in the neighbourhood of 
London, but he now established himself more permanently 
at Howick and soon became so accustomed to country life 
that it was difficult to induce him to leave it. He was not 
well off, the journey was long and expensive, and he was 
also much discouraged, it was said, by his father's accept- 
ance of a peerage and the consequent damage to his own 
Parliamentary future. Fox, who knew his value, used to 
urge him to come up to London and to bring his wife with 
him. " When you are in town without her," he writes, 
" you are unfit for anything, with all your thoughts at 
* Jennings, 226. f "Enc. Brit.," art. "Grey." 



IN THE CABINET 225 

Howick."* But Grrey did not by any means see eye to eye 
with Fox, and still resented having been misled by him on 
the question of the Prince of Wales's marriage. 

Grey's father had now become a supporter of Addington, 
and some attempts were made to enlist his son in that 
ministry, but he refused. Later on there was an idea of 
inducing him to join Pitt's second administration, but here 
he declined to come in without Fox, and to Fox the King 
would not agree. Altogether Grey's prospects at this time 
were discouraging, and he was very much depressed about 
his future. Writing to his wife in 1804, he says: " I feel 
more and more convinced of my unfitness for a pursuit which 
I detest, which interferes with all my private comfort, and 
which I only sigh for an opportunity of abandoning 
decidedly and for ever. Do not think this is the language 
of momentary low spirits; it really is the settled convic- 
tion of my mind."t 

But in 1806 there came a change for the better. By the 
formation of Grenville's Cabinet the necessary conditions 
of Grey's taking office were fulfilled, and he accepted the 
place of First Lord of the Admiralty. This he exchanged, 
on Fox's death some months later, for that of Foreign 
Secretary, with the lead in the House of Commons. But 
neither at the Admiralty nor at the Foreign Office had he 
long enough time to show his capacity, though he laid the 
foundations of a firm friendship with Grenville, which was 
largely responsible for such cohesion as was maintained in 
the Whig party during the next decade. 

Early in March, 1807, Grey, who was now known as Lord 
Howick, his father having been made an earl, asked leave 
to bring in a bill for the admission of Catholics to the army 
and navy. To this the King immediately objected. A 
week later the ministry was dismissed, and Grey went into 
opposition for nearly a quarter of a century. 

In the course of this year his father died and he succeeded 

to the peerage, while a few months later, by the death of 

his uncle, he inherited the family baronetcy and estates. 

This enabled him to live at Howick with more ease and 

* Nat. Biog., xxiii. 175. t Jennings, 225. 



226 GREY 

comfort than heretofore, and he reverted without much 
regret to his Northumbrian fastness. 

In 1809 Grey and Grenville were approached by Perceval 
with a view to a coalition, but the overture was rejected. 
Later on, in 1811 and 1812, at the commencement of the 
regency and on the death of Perceval, several similar sug- 
gestions were made by the Prince of Wales for the formation 
of a new ministry, in which Grey and Grenville were to play 
the leading part. Owing, however, to the continual changes 
in His Royal Highness's counsels and to the strictly correct 
attitude of the two Whig lords nothing definite resulted. 
Grey's severe manner and unsympathetic temperament did 
not make matters easy, and ever since the repudiation 
of Mrs. Fitzherbert he had had but little opinion of the 
Regent, and he did not hesitate to say what he thought. 
Lady Hertford, at that moment the reigning beauty at 
Carlton House, he described in the House of Lords as an 
" unseen and pestilent secret influence which lurked behind 
the throne."* Such remarks did not endear him in high 
places, and his subsequent action in refusing to countenance 
a divorce bill against Queen Caroline precluded any chance 
of his receiving office while George IV. was alive. 

During Liverpool's ministry Grey accordingly took 
a decreasing share in politics. He gradually became 
estranged from Grenville, and identified himself with the 
most intransigeoMt of the Whigs. In 1824 his wife died, 
and he lived more than ever at Howick. Three years later 
he refused to co-operate with Canning and fiercely attacked 
him, George IV. having told Canning that on no account 
must Grey be included in the ministry. In 1828 it was 
thought possible that he might join the Duke of Wellington, 
and had the latter shown any signs of adopting a liberal 
policy it is probable that he would have done so. But the 
Duke adhered to the most Tory of Tory programmes, and 
when, after the general election of 1830, he definitely 
rejected all idea of parliamentary reform, the cards re- 
mained in the hands of the Whigs. On November 15 
the Duke's government was defeated in the House of 
* Nat. Biog., xxiii. 177. 



PRIME MINISTER 227 

Commons, and the next day King William sent for Lord 
Grey, wlio had become, by the elimination of others and the 
efflux of time, the recognized leader of the Whigs. 

Grey was now sixty-six; he had only been in office for 
twelve months in his life, and that was twenty-four years 
ago. Many of his contemporaries were dead or retired, 
and he had to trust almost entirely to new men with whom 
he was not intimate. But he did not hesitate, and easily 
formed his ministry. It included Brougham, Palmerston, 
Melbourne and John Russell, with a large number of 
his own relations, for he was a good deal of a nepotist and 
stuck to the ancient Whig ideas as to prescriptive family 
rights. He immediately set about preparing a bill for 
Parliamentary Reform. On March 1, 1831, it was intro- 
duced and passed its second reading in the House of 
Commons by a majority of one. " I have kept my word 
to the nation,'' he said to Princess Lieven.* Next 
month the government were defeated by eight votes, and 
Grey then advised a dissolution. The general election 
brought him back with increased strength, the Reform 
Bill was introduced afresh, and on this occasion it passed 
the Commons by 136. In the House of Lords, however, 
it was thrown out by forty-one votes. Its defeat was 
accompanied by tremendous demonstrations of anger and 
riot all over the country. But Grey kept cool and deter- 
min ed to try again . He advised the King to prorogue Parlia- 
ment at once. It was a bold move and was not entirely 
unexpected, for the Tories had prepared to present addresses 
against a dissolution. Prompt action was called for, and the 
King stood loyally by his minister. He said that he would 
drive down to Westminster then and there. The equerries 
told him that the State carriages were not ready, " My lord,''' 
he said to Grey, " I'll go if I go in a hackney coach." f 

Another general election confirmed Grey's position, and 
a Cabinet minute of November 11, 1831, says: "Your 
Majesty's servants . . . cannot hesitate to express their 
entire concurrence in the opinion already submitted to 
Your Majesty by Earl Grey, that it is absolutely indispens- 
* Trevelyan, 285 f tti^-> 295. 



228 GKEY 

able that they should have the power of proposing to 
Parliament at the commencement of next session, vv^ith 
the fullest indication of Your Majesty's approbation and 
support, a measure of Parliamentary Reform founded on 
the same principles as that which has lately been rejected 
by the House of Lords/'* 

In the new Parliament Grey introduced an amended bill. 
This was easily passed in the Commons, and was carried 
on its second reading in the Lords by a majority of nine 
in April 1832. But on May 7 Lord Lyndhurst moved 
a wrecking motion which succeeded. Grey was prepared 
for this manoeuvre, and he recommended the King to 
create sufficient peers to overcome the opposition. His 
advice was refused, and he at once resigned. Wellington 
and Lyndhurst attempted to form a new ministry, but 
could not do so, and Grey was recalled. He then obtained 
from the King the necessary promise as to a creation of 
peers in a letter which is one of the landmarks of the con- 
stitution : 

" The King grants permission to Earl Grey and to his 
Chancellor, Lord Brougham, to create such a number of 
peers as will be sufficient to ensure the passing of the Reform 
Bill, first calling up peers' eldest sons. 

" William R.f 
" Windsor, 

" May 17, 1832." 

On this being made known, many peers abstained from 
voting, and the bill was finally passed and shortly after- 
wards received the royal assent. This historic scene, the 
last that was to take place within the walls of the ancient 
palace of Westminster before its destruction by fire, has 
been well recorded on canvas — the Whig seats in the House 
of Lords packed with peers, those of the Tories quite empty; 
half a dozen commissioners in their scarlet robes, with 
Brougham in their midst, on the bench in front of the throne ; 
an illustrious duke — Sussex — standing solitary beside it; 

* " Grey," i. 373. f Jennings, 58. Trevelyan, 348. 



HIS CHARACTER 229 

and at the distant bar the Commons crowded closely together . 
This was Grey's triumph. It was forty years since he had 
mooted his first project for parliamentary reform, and 
he now saw it become law when he was sixty-eight. Such 
devotion to a cause was unique in the annals of politics. 

This was the real work of his ministry. What followed 
was of little moment. In the course of 1833 the Cabinet 
became divided on the subject of Irish coercion, and there 
were numerous disputes among its members. Grey felt 
his advancing age, his objects were accomplished and he 
was anxious to sever himself from affairs. He took the 
opportunity of retiring, and was succeeded by Melbourne 
in July 1834. Early in the next year, on Peel's resignation, 
he was again asked by the King to form a government, 
but he refused, and for the rest of his life lived quietly at 
Ho wick, dying there ten years later. He had had a family 
of fifteen children, ten of whom survived him, and several 
of his descendants have been distinguished for their 
services. The present earl is his great-grandson. 

In appearance Grey was tall, slender and handsome, 
with good features and a pale complexion. Creevey called 
him in his old age " the best dressed and handsomest man 
in England.''* He was a fine type of an old-fashioned 
north-country squire, haughty, narrow, independent and 
severe, not by any means a genius, but high-minded and 
strictly honourable. In debate he was nervous, impetuous 
and inclined to be argumentative. Attached to the Whig 
ideas of constitutional liberty and representation, he did 
not have the opportunity of putting his views into effect 
until the enthusiasm of his youth had diminished and his 
own party had far outstripped him in their liberal aspira- 
tions. Thus he was to some extent merely an instrument 
in the battles of the Reform Bill, and he moved with, rather 
than led, public opinion. But though he sometimes seemed 
to be halting in policy and manner, there is little doubt that 
his calm and cautious temperament enormously facilitated 
the passage of the great measure with which his name is 
identified. 

* Creevey, ii. 225. 



230 GEEY 

In a long parliamentary life Grey had only enjoyed a 
solitary year of office before he became Prime Minister, 
though he had had several opportunities of taking it. This 
fact appealed strongly to the nation as a proof of his single- 
mindedness and honesty of purpose. The first object he 
had set before him, as a young man coming into the House 
of Commons, had been parliamentary reform. For this 
and for kindred measures of liberty he had fought through- 
out his whole career. Ostracized for his opinions, he had 
spent many years of disappointment in a distant retreat. 
Almost at the end of his days his chance came. He seized 
it without hesitation and utilized it with unexampled pluck 
and discretion. Immediately afterwards he again retired 
to his northern home, proud, silent and cold, but fortified 
by the knowledge that he had done, perhaps, more for his 
country in two years than had been done by his. party in 
a century — 

" That Earl wlio forced his compeers to be just, 
And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned." 

" No statue has been erected to Lord Grey in the pre- 
cincts of Westminster. The new Houses of Parliament 
must serve him for a memorial."* 



II.— RUSSELL 

John Russell, afterwards styled Lord John Russell and 
subsequently first Earl Russell, was born in Hertford Street, 
Mayfair, London, on August 18, 1792. He was the third 
child of a Lord John Russell who was the second son of 
Francis, Marquess of Tavistock, and grandson of John, 
fourth Duke of Bedford. Lord Tavistock dying before his 
father, and his elder son, the fifth duke, leaving no issue, 
his second son, the aforesaid Lord John, became the sixth 
duke in 1802, and from that date young John Russell took 
the courtesy prefix. His mother was Georgiana Byng, 
daughter of George, fourth Viscount Torrington. She died 
when he was eight years old, and the next year his father 
* Trevelyan, " Grey," 369. 




T. Lawrtnce pinx. 



S. C'ovsins sc. 



charles grey 
2nd EAEL GEEY 



To face page 230 



EARLY LIFE 231 

removed to Woburn on succeeding to the dukedom. The 
Russells were a rich and ancient race settled in the two 
counties of Devon and Bedford since the days of the 
Tudors, and had long been distinguished for their patriotism 
and liberal politics. In the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries they had been one of the principal families of 
the Revolution, and they disputed with the house of 
Cavendish the leadership of the Whig party. 

The sixth duke, a member of the Society of Friends of 
the People, had served as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland during 
the short ministry of Lord Grenville, but had held no other 
official posts, though his position and wealth gave him 
considerable influence. 

His son, John Russell, was a weakly child, small and often 
ailing. He was sent first to Westminster and then to a 
private tutor's. Later on, after short visits to Ireland, 
Scotland and Portugal, he went to Edinburgh University, 
and afterwards set out on an extensive tour in Central and 
Southern Europe, continuing his classical studies in the 
meanwhile. By the time that he returned to England he 
had enjoyed almost unique opportunities of meeting and 
seeing the most important men and things in Europe. He 
had ridden with Wellington at Torres Vedras and talked to 
Napoleon at Elba. He had walked with Walter Scott on 
the Tweed and breakfasted with Charles Fox in London. 
He had travelled through Spain and Italy, France and 
Germany, and had acquired a lively interest in the politics 
of his own and the principal Continental countries. 

Early in 1813, before he was yet of age, he was^ elected 
member for the pocket borough of Tavistock. His party 
were out of office and were to continue in opposition for 
seventeen years; they thus had urgent need of young, 
ambitious and able politicians. At first Russell's health 
checked his regular attendance in Parliament, and the 
position of the Whigs was sufficiently discouraging to afEord 
him an excuse. But gradually he became more active. 
Public expenditure, Catholic emancipation and parlia- 
mentary reform were his favourite subjects; and at the 
same time he did a large amount of writing — history, 

16 



232 RUSSELL 

memoirs, essays, plays and translations ^11 occupying his 
attention. Few of his literary productions got him much 
celebrity, but they enlarged his mind and developed his 
talents. 

In 1819 he made his first important speech on parlia- 
mentary reform, which he then continued to press forward 
year after year with unabated energy. With hardly less 
patience and pertinacity he urged the claims of the Catholics 
for relief from civil disabilities. He had to wait a long time 
before he got any results, but in 1821 he managed to have 
the corrupt borough of Grampound disfranchised, and in 
1828 he succeeded in making the Tory government repeal 
the Test and Corporation Acts. He had in the meanwhile 
gained a considerable name as a speaker, and when in 1830 
the Whigs at last returned to power, as one of their most 
capable and active members, he was made Paymaster- 
General. He was thus thirty-eight years of age before he 
first received office. 

But Russell's training in opposition had been of the 
highest value to him. As one of the most constant advo- 
cates of parliamentary reform, Grey selected him to be a 
member of the small committee which drew up the Reform 
Bill, and to him was confided the duty of piloting it through 
the House of Commons. On March 1, 1831, he introduced 
his propositions amidst breathless silence, which was at 
length broken by peals of contemptuous laughter from the 
Opposition as he read the list of the hundred and ten 
boroughs which were condemned to partial or entire dis- 
franchisement.* But he carried out his difficult task with 
such courage and ability that after the general election 
which ensued on the bill's first defeat in 1831, Grey asked 
him to join the Cabinet. Again he introduced the bill 
in the face of considerable hostility, and this time it was 
carried by a large majority. " Lord John," said the Duke 
of Wellington, " is a host in himself, "f When eventually, 
after the long fight with the House of Lords, the Reform 
Bill became law, Russell found himself one of the most 
popular men in England. He never afterwards attained 
* Macaulay, "Letters," i. 173. f Jennings, 276. 



HOME SECRETARY 233 

so higli a place in the estimation of the public. Even at 
this stage of his career he was difficult to deal with, and 
already in 1832 he thought of resigning on the question of 
Irish Church reform. Two years later he carried his 
opposition so far as to speak against the government on 
the same subject, and his action, which had much to do 
with Grey's retirement, led to Stanley's famous remark: 
" Johnny has upset the coach."* 

For a few months Melbourne now became Prime Minister, 
and on Althorp's removal to the House of Lords he re- 
commended to the King that Russell should take over 
the lead in the House of Commons. To this suggestion 
William IV. was strongly opposed. " His Majesty," said 
Melbourne, " stated without reserve his opinion that he 
(Lord John) had not the abilities nor the influence which 
qualified him for the task, and observed that he would 
make a wretched figure when opposed by Sir Robert Peel 
and Mr. Stanley. . . . His Majesty had further objections. 
He considered Lord John Russell to have pledged himself 
to certain encroachments upon the Church, which His 
Majesty had made up his mind and expressed his deter- 
mination to resist."! 

Shortly afterwards the Whig government was dismissed, 
and Peel became Prime Minister. Early in 1835, however, 
Melbourne returned to office, andRussell was then appointed 
Home Secretary and leader of the House of Commons. 
In the same year, when he was nearly forty-three, he 
married his first wife, Adelaide, daughter of Thomas Lister, 
of Armitage Park, in Staffordshire, widow of the second 
Lord Ribblesdale. She died three years later, leaving two 
daughters. 

At first Russell had a good deal to contend with. He 
was not particularly popular in the House nor very easy 
with his colleagues. The King disliked him, and did not 
hesitate to show it, though he gradually came to recognize 
Russell's merits and sincerity. After a time matters went 
more smoothly. Russell was a thoroughly capable minister, 
keen and industrious, though handicapped by his health. 
* Jennings, 378, note. f Walpole, " Russell," i. 208. 



234 RUSSELL 

He interested himself especially in Ireland and was the 
means of passing several acts of benefit to that country, 
but his impatience became more pronounced and he was 
still a very uncertain quantity in the Cabinet. His careless- 
ness about conciliating his Radical followers and his 
supercilious manners often gave offence. Lord Lytton in 
the " New Timon " wrote of him: 

" Next, cool and all unconscious of reproacli, 
Comes the calm ' Johnny, who upset the coach.' 
How formed to lead, if not too proud to please — 
His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze. 
Like or dislike, he does not care a jot: 
He wants your vote, but your affections not; 
Yet human hearts need sun, as well as oats, 
So cold a climate plays the deuce with votes : 
And, while his doctrines ripen day by day, 
His frost-nipped party pines itself away."* 

In 1839 the government were compelled to resign, from 
not being supported in a division by the Radicals. Owing, 
however, to Sir Robert Peel being unable to satisfy the 
Queen on the Bedchamber question, Melbourne resumed 
the seals, though much weakened in power and prestige, 
Russell now took the Colonial Office. A year later he 
was again at variance with his chief, this time on account 
of Palmerston's foreign policy in the Near East. Again 
he threatened resignation, but by Melbourne's tact and 
the Queen's pressure he was induced to remain. Palmer- 
ston's independent methods of conducting the business of 
the Foreign Office much disturbed him, and he put his 
opinions on paper. 

" November 19, 1840. 

" My dear Melbourne, 

" In the days of Lord Grey, every important note 
was carefully revised by him, and generally submitted to 
the Cabinet. As Paymaster of the Forces, I then had more 
information and more power of advising than I have now. 
At present I receive the most important despatches in a 
printed form some days after they are sent. . . . 

" Now it cannot, of course, be expected that I am to 
* Walpole, " Russell," i. 304-305. 



PRIME MINISTEE 235 

defend in the House of Commons acts which I have not 
advised, and of which the editors (of newspapers) are as 
cognisant as myself. . . . 

" To this day I am not aware what was written to Lord 
Granville in consequence of our two Cabinet meetings. 

" All this is very unpleasant, but I think it best to tell 
you what I feel. I beg, however, that you will not send 
this letter to Palmerston. <« Yours truly 

" J. Russell."* 

In 1841 Russell married as his second wife Lady Fanny 
Elliot, daughter of Gilbert, Earl of Minto. He then left 
the house in Wilton Crescent which he had hitherto occupied 
and moved to Chesham Place, to accommodate his family, 
which was outgrowing his means. 

In the summer of 1841 the Whig government fell, and 
Sir Robert Peel took office. He at once began that course 
of liberal legislation about which it was said " that he had 
caught the Whigs bathing and walked away with their 
clothes."! He initiated his comprehensive measures for 
the reorganization and repeal of the Corn Laws, measures 
in which many of Russell's followers were only too ready 
to concur. Russell himself was in sympathy with him, 
and when in December 1845 Peel resigned in consequence 
of differences with his colleagues as to the repeal of the Corn 
Laws, it was for Russell that the Queen sent. He writes to 
his wife on December 11 from Osborne: " Well, I am here, 
and have seen her Majesty. It is proposed to me to form 
a government; and nothing can be more gracious than the 
manner in which this has been done. Likewise, Sir Robert 
Peel has placed his views on paper, and they are such as 
very much to facilitate my task."t 

Russell found it impossible, however, to combine a 

ministry, and Peel eventually returned to office. But 

six months later Peel was definitely defeated, and on 

June 28, 1846, Russell became Prime Minister., At this time 

he was not particularly well off, and early in the next year 

* Walpole, " RusseU," i. 363. f Jennings, 317. 

I Walpole, "RusseU," i. 410. 



236 EUSSELL 

the Queen offered him Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park, 
a delightful house which he kept for the rest of his life. 

His ministry was at first popular and successful, its only- 
discordant note being the rather questionable manner 
in which Palmerston carried on the work of the Foreign 
Office without consulting the Queen or his colleagues 
in the Cabinet as much as he might have done. E-ussell 
usually agreed with Palmerston's policy, but the Queen and 
the Prince Consort often did not. Her Majesty took 
exception to the way in which despatches were sent off or 
altered without her approval, and on the point of form 
Russell held a similar view. Thus dissensions arose. 

The various revolutions in Europe in 1848 emphasized 
the different attitudes of the Queen and her Foreign 
Secretary, and a correspondence began to pass between him, 
the court and the Prime Minister, which gradually became 
acrimonious. In this dispute, which eventually led to a 
break between Russell and Palmerston, public opinion was 
generally with the latter. The policy of the government 
was, in fact, becoming identified with him rather than with 
its leader, and when in December 1851 Palmerston was 
dismissed from office in consequence of his unauthorized 
though unofficial approval of the new French regime, 
Russell was severely shaken. Two months later, on an 
amendment of Palmerston's to a militia bill, the ministry 
was defeated and resigned. It had passed various liberal 
measures, but its chief claim to fame in the eyes of the 
country had been its conduct of foreign affairs. Russell 
came in for a good deal of criticism. " Some men com- 
plained that he had parted from Lord Palmerston; others 
that he had endured him too long : some that he had in- 
troduced a Reform Bill; others that his measure had not 
been larger."* 

Punch, parodying the " Ancient Mariner," wrote at this 

time: 

" Grumbling, grumbling everywhere, 
And all my friends did shrink — 
Grumbling, grumbling everywhere, 
A fact that none could blink. 

**Walpole, " Russell," ii. 151. ~~~ 




F. Grant pin.x 



LOED JOHN EUSSELL 

AFTERWARDS EARL RUSSELL 



To face page 23& 



COALITION GOVERNMENT 237 

Ah, well-a-day in what bad books 
I was with old and young ; 
And by everyone Lord Palmerston 
Into my teeth was flung."* 

Lord Derby now formed a government, which survived 
for ten months, when it was defeated on the budget. In 
the meantime negotiations had been going on between the 
Liberals and the Peelites, and on Derby's resignation the 
Queen, as a compromise, sent for Lord Aberdeen. She wrote 
to Russell on December 19, 1852, as follows : 

" The Queen has to-day charged Lord Aberdeen with the 
duty of forming an administration, which he has accepted. 
The Queen thinks the moment to have arrived when a popu- 
lar, efficient, and durable government could be formed by 
the sincere and united efforts of all parties professing Con- 
servative and Liberal opinions. The Queen, knowing that 
this can only be effected by the patriotic sacrifice of personal 
interests and feelings to the public, trusts that Lord John 
Russell will, as far as he is able, give his valuable and 
powerful assistance to the realization of this object. "f 

To this rather unpalatable proposal Russell was willing 
to agree. There was considerable difficulty in arranging the 
difierent posts in the Cabinet so as to suit all the interests 
concerned. At last it was settled that Russell, who had 
been a few weeks at the Foreign Office, should lead in the 
Commons, without holding any other place, while Palmer- 
ston took the Home Office, and Clarendon became Foreign 
Secretary. The ministry started well, but, like most 
coalitions, it had the elements of disruption in it. The 
Whigs and the Peelites were jealous, Palmerston still took 
an interest in foreign affairs and was by far the strongest 
man in the government, while Russell was inclined to 
resent his own diminished position. It was the eve of the 
Crimean War. Aberdeen would not take sufficiently active 
measures, though Palmerston and Russell continually urged 
him to do so. The counsels of the Cabinet swayed from 
side to side. Russell then had to drop his new Reform Bill, 
which mortified him very much, and in 1854 he threatened 
* Walpole, " EusseU," ii. 151. f ^^^d., ii. 161. 



238 EUSSELL 

to withdraw from the office of Lord President which he 
had latterly held. Gradually he became more and more 
dissatisfied with the government's policy, and in January 
1855 he definitely resigned. Immediately afterwards 
Aberdeen himself followed suit. Derby, Lansdowne and 
Kussell were then each asked to form a government, but 
they all failed, and it was clear that Palmerston alone could 
lead with any prospect of success. RusseU's uncertain 
conduct had lost him his popularity, and the country felt 
that a strong and decided man was needed to deal with the 
war. After a short delay Palmerston accordingly became 
Prime Minister. At first Hussell would not accept oflS.ce 
in his government, but he agreed to go and represent Great 
Britain at the Vienna Conference, and promised that after- 
wards he would take the Colonial Ofl&ce. His mission at 
Vienna lasted until the summer, but it was not felicitous, 
for he took a different view from Lord Clarendon, the 
Foreign Secretary, as to the procedure to be pursued. In 
consequence there was a considerable outcry against him 
in England, partly no doubt uninformed and unfair, but 
sufi&cient to make his presence in the Cabinet embarrassing. 
A motion of want of confidence in his conduct was pro- 
posed, and in July 1855 he retired, though he continued 
to support the ministry. 

For some years he now turned again to literature, and 
during this time he produced his best known work, the 
** Life of Charles James Fox." But he still made incursions 
into politics and was often a thorn in Palmerston's side. 
In the latter 's defeat in 1858 Russell was not unconcerned. 
Two years later, however, he joined Palmerston's second 
administration as Foreign Secretary. Shortly afterwards, 
in 1861, he was created a peer as Earl Russell, his age and 
health inducing him to seek some relaxation from the 
heavy work in the House of Commons. 

Until Palmerston's death Russell was now entirely 
occupied with the business of his own department and with 
the lead in the House of Lords. His management of 
foreign afiairs was not particularly successful, though Lord 
Derby's criticisms were perhaps too severe. " The foreign 



PEIME MINISTER AGAIN 239 

policy of the noble earl/' he said, " as far as the prmciple 
of non-intervention is concerned, may be summed up in 
two truly expressive words — meddle and muddle. During 
the whole course of his diplomatic correspondence, wherever 
he has interfered — and he has interfered everywhere — he 
has been lecturing, scolding, blustering, and — retreating."* 

In 1862 Lord Russell received the Garter, and in October 
1865, on Lord Palmerston's death, he again became Prime 
Minister. But his capacity for leadership was gone and 
his powers were failing. Eight months later, on a hostile 
division, he resigned, leaving office finally in June, 1866, 
when almost seventy-four years of age. For some time 
he still interested himself in politics and literature, but 
he gradually became decrepit and was compelled to cease 
from active work. He passed his later years at Richmond, 
and died in May 1878. He left several children by both 
his marriages and has male descendants now living. 

Lord Russell's personal appearance was against him. 
His face was pale and drawn. He had a massive head 
and broad shoulders, but his body was disproportionately 
short and small. All his life he suffered from a poor diges- 
tion, which explained many of his defects. " His outward 
form," says a contemporary, " was frail and weakly; his 
countenance sicklied over with the effects of Hi-health and 
solitary self-communing; his figure shrunken below the 
dimensions of ordinary manhood; his general air that of a 
meditative invalid. But within that feeble body was a 
spirit that knew not how to cower, a brave heart that could 
pulsate vehemently with large and heroical emotions, a soul 
that aspired to live nobly in a proud and right manly career. 
His voice was weak, his accent mincing with affectation, 
his elocution broken, stammermg and uncertain, save 
when in a few lucky moments his tongue seemed unloosed 
and there came rushing from his lips a burst of epigram- 
matic sentences — logical, eloquent, and terse, and oc- 
casionally vivified by the fire of genius. "f But though 
as a speaker Russell was rarely powerful, often halting and 
cold, in retort he was very ready. Sir Francis Burdett, 
* Jennings, 314. f It^id., 279. 



240 RUSSELL 

who had turned from Radical to Tory, once took occasion 
after a speech of Russell's to sneer at his " cant of 
patriotism." " I quite agree/' said Lord John, " with the 
honourable baronet that the cant of patriotism is a very 
ofiensive thing. But I can tell him a worse — the recant 
of patriotism.''* 

His preoccupation was remarkable. Once at a Court 
Ball he was sitting next to the Duchess of Sutherland in front 
of the fire. He suddenly rose, left her without saying a 
word and went and sat down in another part of the room 
next to the Duchess of Inverness. This change of place 
was noticed by many of those present, and was thought to 
indicate some quarrel. A friend said to him that he hoped 
there was nothing in it. " Not at all," said Russell; " it 
was only that the fire was too hot." " I hope you told the 
Duchess of Sutherland the reason why you got up and left 
her," said the friend. " Oh no," said Lord John, " I 
didn't, but I told the Duchess of Inverness."* 

His liberalism, though sound, was not extreme. He 
followed the opinions of Fox — " that men are entitled to 
equal rights, but to equal rights to unequal things. "| 
Universal suffrage he opposed, and he never pursued peace 
with the intensity of Aberdeen, though for the old traditions 
of the Whigs he had a thorough veneration. But he was 
hampered by a curious inclination to criticize often or 
to controvert his best friends and allies. He was always 
resigning and always at the most awkward junctures. 
Sidney Herbert once said of him: " Lord John drops his 
resolutions as if they were his colleagues."! This habit, for 
it became very nearly a habit, undoubtedly laid him open 
to the imputation of playing for his own hand, and he 
suffered for it materially, for he had frequently to change 
his constituencies. In later life, after he had been 
Prime Minister, it was perhaps natural for him to hesitate 
about serving under Aberdeen or Palmerston, but his 
general attitude towards his party was never very genial. 
Constant indisposition and pressure of circumstances 
probably embittered a rather jealous temperament. 
* Eussell, " Collections," 16-18 (sense), j Jennings, 279. J Ibid., 282 



HIS CHARACTER 241 

As an old man lie took more generous views. Not long 
before his death he wrote of liimself : " To speak of my own 
work, I can only rejoice that I have been allowed to have 
my share in the task accomplished in the half-century 
which has elapsed from 1819 to 1869. My capacity, I 
always felt, was very inferior to that of the men who have 
attained in past times the foremost place in our Parliament, 
and in the councils of our Sovereign. I have committed 
many errors, some of them very gross blunders. But the 
generous people of England are always forbearing and 
forgiving to those statesmen who have the good of their 
country at heart. Like my betters, I have been misrepre- 
sented and slandered by those who know nothing of me; 
but I have been more than compensated by the confidence 
and the friendship of the best men of my own political 
connection, and by the regard and favourable interpretation 
of my motives which I have heard expressed by my generous 
opponents from the days of Lord Castlereagh to those of 
Mr. Disraeli."* 

Russell had the difficult task of combining under one 
flag the old Whigs and the new Radicals. He lacked the 
debonair charm of Melbourne, the cheery pugnacity of 
Palmerston and the inspiring eloquence of Gladstone. 
He had no gifts of face or fortune to help him, and little 
of that spirit of compromise which in some hands can so 
often oil the wheels of politics. Yet with all these dis- 
advantages and with singularly able competition on his 
own side and that of his opponents, he succeeded in per- 
forming remarkable services to his country. To a large 
extent he may be called the founder of modern Liberalism. 

Such were the reformers, Tory and Whig. They had 
formidable foes to encounter, they made many mistakes, 
but they laid the axe to the roots of the tree of privilege, 
that steady growth of centuries, and within a few decades 
pocket boroughs and patent places, golden prebends and 
purchased colours, were to fall to the ground and to vanish 
m a holocaust of repeal. 

* Jennings, 283. 



CHAPTER XII 
THE LAST WHIGS 

MELBOUENE AND PALMERSTON 

Oliver Cromwell's attempts to introduce a less aristo- 
cratic style into the government of England were not an 
unqualified success, and at the Restoration the old ruling 
caste easily resumed its position of an imperium in imperio, 
an oligarchy within the narrow ranks of an exclusive society. 
The vagaries of James II. made this an essentially Whig 
connection, founded on a few powerful and wealthy ducal 
houses, cemented by their influence in Parliament and 
buttressed by the sober-minded Kings who had been im- 
ported from overseas. The glories of Marlborough, the 
abilities of Walpole and the boroughs of Newcastle 
developed their control to such an extent that for the first 
sixty years of the eighteenth century the Whigs had an 
almost permanent hold on ofiice. Then a fortuitous 
combination of events began to sap and shatter their 
strength. The policy of George III. and of Pitt at home, 
that of Robespierre and of Bonaparte abroad, reduced 
them to impotence. For sixty years they were ostracized, 
and when at last they came back to power they had the 
seeds of dissolution in them. With their former policy they 
had retained their archaic traditions of family connection, 
by which practically every Whig Prime Minister had been 
related or allied more or less closely to his predecessors. 
The pure ichor that ran in their veins could not be con- 
taminated by a transfusion of baser blood. This principle 
of political affinity was adhered to by Grey, and was 
singularly epitomized by Melbourne and Palmerston, with 
whom the old Whig party may be said to have come to an 

242 



FAMILY TEADITION 243 

end. Its illustration deserves record. Lord Melbourne 
was a brother-in-law of Lord Palmerston. His wife was a 
cousin of Lord Grey's wife and of tlie Duke of Portland's 
wife, who was herself a daughter of the Duke of Devonshire. 
Through Lord Egremont, Melbourne was himself a cousin 
of Lord Grenville, and so was connected with George 
Grenville, Lord Chatham and Pitt. Both his wife and his 
mother were great-nieces of Lord Eockingham's sisters. 
Rockingham was a cousin of Pelham's daughter, and 
Pelham was brother to the Duke of Newcastle and brother- 
in-law to Lord Townshend, who stood in the same relation 
to Walpole. Thus in four generations Melbourne's col- 
lateral ancestry included a dozen Whig Prime Ministers, 
all of them, with the exception of Chatham, nobly born 
and nearly all of them rich. 

Despite their long exile in the wilderness of opposition 
the Whigs still stuck to their old system and allowed 
hardly any outsider within the charmed circle. They pre- 
sented to democracy a much closer corporation, a far more 
adamantine ring than did the Tories. New men such as 
Canning, Peel and Disraeli were thus able to lead the 
party of privilege forty years before Gladstone was admitted 
to a similar position in the party of progress. This limpet- 
like adherence to what had come to be regarded as fossilized 
methods was a serious shock to the younger generation, 
and it had much to do with the final disappearance of the 
Whigs from practical politics. They had outlived their 
utility, and their most pious hopes of earlier days were soon 
to be outstripped by the Liberals who supplanted them. 
History had left them behind. 

When the rival names were first coined, a Whig had 
meant a Scots Presbyterian rebel and a Tory an Irish 
Papist outlaw. Neither description was complimentary 
or strictly accurate, but each contained some germs of 
truth. Roughly speaking, the former party supported the 
Parliament, while the latter swore by the King. As time 
went on these tenets became modified, but their general 
idea remained comparatively constant. The Whigs repre- 
sented the great landowners and commerce. They wanted 



244 MELBOURNE 

peace and a little progress. The Tories stood for the smaller 
squires and the Church. They liked extreme stability with 
a dash of adventure. Later on the Whigs split into two 
sections, one advocating reform from above, the other reform 
from below. Rockingham embodied the first and Chatham 
the second programme. Neither succeeded, the party was 
broken up and the Tories ruled for half a century. When, 
with the advent of Grey, the more liberal policy prevailed, 
it came too late to benefit its promoters; the times had 
changed; the Radicals had arisen, and the old Whigs 
gradually sank into a limbo of obscurity from which they 
have never emerged. They became the shade of an 
almost forgotten name. 

I.— MELBOURNE 

The Hon. William Lamb, afterwards second Viscount 
Melbourne, was born at Brocket Hall, in Hertfordshire, * on 
the 15th of March, 1779, the second son of Peniston, the first 
viscount, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Ralph 
Milbanke, a Yorkshire baronet. His putative father was 
the son of Sir Matthew Lamb, a Southwell attorney who 
had amassed a large fortune in his profession, not always, it 
was said, by the most scrupulous methods. The latter's 
son, Peniston Lamb, had been a constant supporter of Lord 
North's administration. For his services he was raised to 
the Irish peerage in 1770, advanced to a viscounty eleven 
years later, and in 1815 given an English barony. 
There was, however, a general belief that William Lamb's 
real father was George Wyndham, third Earl of Egremont, 
whom he strongly resembled in appearance and who had 
been passionately in love with his mother. She had been 
a lady who possessed great attractions and numerous 
admirers, including the Prince of Wales. Byron called her 
" a sort of modern Aspasia." There was therefore 
considerable colour in the supposition and, if it was 
correct. Lamb had inherited the blood of the Wyndhams, 
one of the most distinguished families in eighteenth-century 
politics, and was a cousin of the Grenvilles. 

* Or at Melbourne Hall on March IStli. Dunklej, 12. 



EARLY LIFE 245 

Lamb was educated at Eton, where he was in Sixth 
Form, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the 
Declamation Prize, taking his degree in 1799. Five years 
later he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, and he held 
a solitary guinea brief at the Lancashire sessions. The 
appearance of his name upon it, he used to say, gave him 
the highest feeling of triumphant satisfaction that he had 
ever experienced in his life, far more than his appointment 
as Prime Minister.* 

In 1805 his elder brother died, and Lamb became his 
father's heir. He then married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, 
the youngest daughter of Frederick, third Earl of Bess- 
borough. She was nineteen years of age, and as beautiful 
as she was talented. By this alliance he became connected 
with the great Whig families of Spencer and Cavendish. 
In the same year his sister Amelia, who was many years 
later to become Lady Palmerston, married Earl Cowper, 
another powerful Whig. Lamb's political associations were 
thus cast on the liberal side, and when in 1806 he was 
elected member for Leominster he attached himself to 
Lord Grenville, who was then Prime Minister. His 
party had been for twenty-four years in opposition, and 
after this single year in office they were to repeat that 
experience. 

At first Lamb was by no means an ardent politician, for 
the claims of society attracted him more and it was there 
that he made his earliest reputation. He was, however, 
a strong supporter of Catholic emancipation, and this 
unpopular view cost him his seat at the general election of 
1812, after which he remained out of Parliament for about 
four years. But in 1816 he was returned for Northampton, 
a constituency that he subsequently exchanged for Hert- 
fordshire. For some time his family affairs had caused 
him trouble. His only son was an imbecile, and his wife 
had become infatuated with Lord Byron and had published 
a novel in which the poet figured as the hero. Matters 
dragged on from bad to worse until Lady Caroline's mind 
became affected, and in 1825 she was separated from her 
* Hayward, i; 255. 



246 MELBOURNE 

husband. The affair caused great pain to Lamb and 
embittered much of his life. 

But during all these years he had not been idle. Office 
was closed to the Whigs, but there were other spheres in 
which he shone. At the Regent's court and in the intel- 
lectual circles of London; at Carlton and Holland Houses; 
as a wit and a cynic, a lover of ladies and a centre of fashion, 
he was as prominent as he was popular. In his own home, 
though his domestic life was shattered, he became an in- 
dustrious, profound and versatile student, and amassed a 
store of information and of philosophy that were to serve 
him well in years to come. Castlereagh used to say of him 
that he might become Prime Minister if he would only shake 
off his easy ways and set about it.* His natural qualities 
equalled his attainments. " Bound to succeed, and to 
succeed easily," says Mr. Lytton Strachey, " he was gifted 
with so fine a nature that success became him. His mind 
at once supple and copious, his temperament at once calm 
and sensitive, enabled him not merely to work but to live 
with perfect facility and with the grace of strength. "t 

When in 1822 Canning became Foreign Secretary, Lamb 
was offered a small post in the government, which he 
refused, and it was not until five years later, when Canning 
became Prime Minister, that he first took any office. He 
was not at the moment in Parliament and he was already 
forty-eight, as late an age as any Prime Minister began 
official life, but he had always been an admirer of Canning, 
and he agreed to accept the place of Irish Secretary. 
When his name was proposed to George IV. the King said : 
" William Lamb — William Lamb : put him anywhere you 
like."t 

Lamb remained in Ireland for nearly a year, through the 
successive ministries of Canning and Goderich, and at first 
he consented to stay on under the Duke of Wellington. 
But a few months later he resigned with the rest of the 
Canningites, directly it was certain that the policy of the 
government was to be purely Tory. 

In July 1828 his father died, and he succeeded to the 
* Hayward, i. 257. f Strachey, 60. $ Torrens, i. 223. 















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WILLIAM LAMB 

2nd viscount MELBOURNE 



To face page 246 



PEIME MINISTER 247 

peerage and a considerable fortune, with Brocket Hall and 
Melbourne House (now Dover House) in Whitehall. Two 
years later, on the Whigs coming into office, he was made 
Home Secretary, and soon had his time fully occupied in 
dealing with the demonstrations and riots that arose all 
over England and Ireland at the time of the Reform Bill. 
For this reason he was unable to take any great part in the 
passage of that measure, for which, indeed, he had but little 
sympathy, though he regarded it as inevitable. 

On the resignation of Lord Anglesey in 1833 Melbourne 
was offered the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, which he 
declined. His abilities, his even temperament and his 
wealth had marked him out for a higher position. 

In July 1834 Lord Grey, weary of the quarrels of his 
colleagues, determined to retire, and Melbourne was rather 
unexpectedly sent for by King William. Having first 
ascertained that Lord Lansdowne would not form a govern- 
ment, he undertook to do so himself. His popularity had 
made the way easy for him. Durham, speaking of a 
possible successor to Grey, had said: " Melbourne is the 
only man to be Prime Minister, because he is the only one 
of whom none of us would be jealous."* But though his 
ministry was almost the same as that of Lord Grey, dis- 
sensions soon arose in it, due principally to the difficulties 
made by Durham and Brougham and to the King's dislike 
of Lord John Russell. The death of Lord Spencer and the 
consequent removal of his son, Lord Althorp, to the House 
of Lords deprived the government of one of its most 
important members in the House of Commons, and in 
November 1834 the King seized the opportunity and 
suddenly dismissed his ministers. Melbourne, however, 
took this " in his usual 'poco curante way," went off 
to the play and roared with laughter .f Writing to Grey 
of the King's cowp, he says: " I am not surprised at his 
decision, nor do I know that I can entirely condemn it.^'f 
But in public opinion the act was considered a straining of 
the prerogative, and though Sir Robert Peel was able to 

* Bulwer, ii. 203, note. f Croker, ii. 245. 

X Nat. Biog., xxxi. 435. 

17 



248 MELBOURNE 

remain on in office for a few months, his constant defeats 
in Parliament obliged him to resign on April 8, 1835. 

Grey and Lansdowne were both approached by William 
IV., but without success, and eventually he was compelled 
to revert to Melbourne. The latter writes on April 12, 1835, 
to Russell, who had just got married: 

" My dear John, 

" Lord Grey entirely declines taking any part, and 
the King considers me as employed in making arrange- 
ments. I am sorry for it, but you must see the necessity 
of your immediately coming to London. Here is much that 
must be decided without further delay. The questions of 
Brougham and Palmerston are of the utmost importance, 
full as much as any questions of principle can be. Pray 
do not delay. 

" Yours faithfully, 

" Melbouene."* 

Melbourne's position was now much securer than it 
had previously been. He had refused an earldom and the 
Garter on leaving office the year before, he was known to 
be exceptionally able, and he was considered moderate and 
disinterested. The King, however, disliked the govern- 
ment, and there was a strong majority in the Lords against 
them. Their reputation was not enhanced by Melbourne's 
appearing for the second time as co-respondent in a divorce 
suit, though on both occasions he was exonerated. But as 
time went on William IV. began to tolerate his ministers, 
and at last he went so far as to ask some of them to dinner. 
Melbourne's transmission of the invitation was as follows : 
"The King highly approves the day fixed for the meeting 
of Parliament, and begs that everybody will dine with him 
after the Council, and drink two bottles of wine a man."t 

In June 1837 King William died, and at the ensuing 
general election the Whigs found themselves well con- 
firmed in power. Melbourne now devoted himself to the 
political education of the young Queen, and this is without 
* Walpole, " Russell," i. 232. f Ihid., i. 269. 



AND QUEEN VICTORIA 249 

doubt the most memorable and the finest part of his career. 
He modified his old free-and-easy manners, his broad con- 
versation, his casual methods of business and his somewhat 
cynical ideas, and entered zealously and conscientiously 
on duties for which he had hardly hitherto seemed 
eminently suited. Few deny that he discharged them 
with the greatest tact, loyalty and sense. Some of their 
correspondence illustrates the close and affectionate re- 
lations between the Queen and her Prime Minister. On New 
Year's Day, 1838, he writes: 

"... Lord Melbourne feels most deeply the extreme 
kindness of your Majesty's expressions. Whatever may 
happen in the course of events, it will always be to Lord 
Melbourne a source of the most lively satisfaction to have 
assisted your Majesty in the commencement of your reign, 
which was not without trouble and difficulty, and your 
Majesty may depend that whether in or out of office Lord 
Melbourne's conduct will always be directed by the 
strongest attachment to your Majesty's person, and by the 
most ardent desire to promote your Majesty's interest, 
which from his knowledge of your Majesty's character 
and disposition Lord Melbourne feels certain will be always 
identified with the interests of your people."* 

Immediately after her Coronation the Queen's first letter 
is to her Prime Minister : 

" Buckingham Palace, 
" June 29, 1838. 

" The Queen is very anxious to hear if Lord Melbourne 
got home safe, and if he is not tired, and quite well this 
morning. 

" Lord Melbourne will be glad to hear that the Queen 
had an excellent night, is not the least tired, and is perfectly 
well this morning; indeed, she feels much better than she 
has done for some days. 

" The Queen hears that it is usual to ask for an additional 
week's holidays for the boys at the various Public Schools 
on the occasion of the Coronation, Perhaps Lord Melbourne 
* " Letters of Queen Victoria," i. 132. 



250 MELBOURNE 

will enquire about this, in order that there may be no neglect 
on my part/'* 

The political history of his government was not parti- 
cularly distinguished, but it carried on with moderate 
success until 1839, when it was almost defeated on the 
Jamaica Bill. Melbourne then resigned, but as the Queen 
refused to agree to Peel's recommendations, he again 
returned to office " behind the petticoats of the ladies of 
the Bedchamber." The first period of his government, up 
to 1837, had been fairly active, while the second, on to 
1839, had been one of compromise. The third portion, 
to 1841, was weak and inconclusive. No important 
measures were passed, and only with considerable difficulty 
could the necessary majorities be obtained. Finally, after 
a vote of want of confidence, a dissolution and heavy defeats 
in both Houses, Melbourne resigned in August 1841. Soon 
afterwards he had a slight seizure and his activity diminished. 
He continued to act as leader of the Opposition for a short 
time, but he gradually relinquished that post to Lansdowne 
and then took much less interest in politics. In 1846, on 
the Whigs returning to power, Russell became Prime 
Minister, but Melbourne was not asked to join the govern- 
ment, an omission which he felt a good deal. After this 
he kept more and more in retirement, his health becoming 
very feeble, until in November 1848 he died at Brocket, 
an almost forgotten man. His wife had predeceased him, 
and he left no surviving issue. His title became extinct, 
but his property passed to his sister. Lady Palmerston. 

In appearance Melbourne was a strikingly good-looking 
man, dark with somewhat foreign features, tall and well 
built. Hay don the painter called him " a handsome lion." 
Leslie says of him: "His head was a truly noble one. I 
think indeed he was the finest specimen of manly beauty 
I ever saw ; not only were his features eminently handsome 
but his expression was in the highest degree intellectual ."f 
He had a joyous laugh, a deep musical voice, was free from 
all affectation, frank in manner and full of humour. His 
gait and dress were at once careless and perfect, though his 

* " Letters of Queen Victoria," i. 160. f Torrens, ii. 259. 



HIS TASTES 251 

critics found fault with them. Disraeli describes him at 
Queen Victoria's coronation " with his coronet cocked over 
his nose, his robes under his feet and holding the great 
sword of state like a butcher."* 

Melbourne's personal popularity, his good company and 
his amusing conversation contributed largely to his political 
advancement, for neither as an orator nor a statesman did 
he show any special talents. In business he had the re- 
putation of being idle, but he always knew his subject, 
though he often liked to pretend that he did not. His easy, 
genial and witty manners and his knowledge of the world 
and of human nature supplied the want of other gifts. 
*' Ability," he once said, " is not everything. Propriety 
of conduct — the verecundia — should be combined with 
the ingenium to make a great man and a statesman, "f 

As to his literary tastes, Greville says that " He lived 
surrounded by books and nothing prevented him, even 
when Prime Minister and with all the calls on his time to 
which he was compelled to attend, from reading every new 
publication of interest or merit, as well as frequently 
revelling among the favourite authors of his early studies. "J 
It was by this omnivorous reading that he acquired the 
" vast fund of miscellaneous knowledge with which his 
conversation was always replete and which, mixed up with 
his characteristic peculiarities, gave an extraordinary zest 
and pungency to his society. His memory was extremely 
retentive and amply stored with choice passages of every 
imaginable variety, so that he could converse learnedly 
upon almost all subjects and was never at a loss for copious 
illustrations, amusing anecdotes and happy quotations."^ 
The same writer says of his politics: " He never was really 
well fitted for political life, for he had a great deal too much 
candour and was too fastidious to be a good party man. 
. . . And still less was he fit to be the leader of a party 
and the head of a government, for he had neither the 
strong convictions nor the eager ambition nor the firmness 
and resolution which such a post requires : from education 
and turn of mind and from the society in which he was bred 
* Buckle, ii. 32. f Jennings, 228. % Greville, vi. 242. 



252 MELBOUKNE 

and always lived, he was a Whig; but he was a very moderate 
one, abhorring all extremes, a thorough Conservative at 
heart, and consequently he was only half identified in 
opinion and sympathy with the party to which he belonged 
when in office."* 

His remarks were often as cynical as they were amusing. 
Once when there was a question of dealing with the Corn 
Laws, Melbourne called up the stairs to his colleagues after 
a Cabinet dinner: " Well, what are we to say about this ? 
Are we going to raise the price of corn, or lower it or keep it 
steady ? I don't care what we say, but we'd better all say 
the same thing."t One of his common remarks was: 
" Most letters answer themselves;" while another, in reply 
to the Radicals' constant requests for reforming legislation, 
was: " Why not leave it alone ?"t 

Candidates for honours he specially derided. " What 
does he want now," he asked about an importunate peer; 
" is it a garter for the other leg ? "§ Of the same order he said 
that " its advantage was that it had no damned merit about 
it." " A garter," he said, " may attach to us somebody 
of consequence whom nothing else will reach; but what 
would be the use of my taking it ? I cannot bribe myself ."|| 
His first attack of illness he called " only a runaway knock, 
but he shouldn't care to know the fellow who gave it." 

But with all his airy nonchalance, his patriotism was 
thoroughly straightforward. When the young Queen was 
anxious for Prince Albert to be made King Consort, 
Melbourne strongly dissuaded her. " For God's sake, let's 
have no more of it, ma'am; for if you once get the English 
people into the way of making kings you will get them into 
the way of unmaking them."^ To his party he was always 
faithful. Dining once at Windsor in his later years, he 
said to the Queen, apropos of Peel's conversion to Free 
Trade: " Ma'am, it's a damned dishonest act."** 

Melbourne's conduct to his Sovereign in the early years 
of her long reign was an invaluable and memorable con- 

* Greville, vi. 242-3. f Jennings, 231 (sense). 

t Nat. Biog., xxxi. 438. § Torrens, ii. 258. || Jennings, 231. 

i Russell, " Collections," 29. ** Strachey, 138. 



HIS CHARACTER 253 

tribution to the good of the State. With consummate 
art he guided her mind into the constitutional way of 
government, firmly withstanding the arbitrary influences 
to which she might have been exposed. On these grounds 
he deserves a fame which might otherwise have been denied 
him. Without much wish or call for self-restraint, he 
might easily have been a mere man of pleasure. Born 
to looks, wit, fortune and place, he yet led a life that in 
many ways was sad and solitary. His wife's vagaries. and 
misfortunes, and the ill-health of his only son had taken 
all the heart out of him. He became pensive, cynical and 
seeming to care for things much less than he really did, for 
Lady Palmerston, his sister, who knew him best, always 
said that earnestness was the essential element of his 
character. The opportunity of teaching his young Sovereign 
how to reign, of lavishing his affection and experience upon 
her, came as his salvation, and he nobly redeemed his 
career. 

As a man he had probably the most attractive 
personality of all the Prime Ministers. He was loyal, 
learned and infinitely entertaining, a scholar, a gentleman 
and a patriot. It is true that he lacked energy, afiected 
indolence and was often content to let things slide, but he 
was a conscientious supporter of the policy bequeathed 
him by Grey. He transmitted from the old Whigs to the 
new Liberals the tradition of a quiet government of 
reasonable progress. He avoided antagonizing the Con- 
servatives, on whom the full meaning of the Reform Bill 
had just dawned, and curbed the passions of the Radicals, 
who were so anxious to cull its earliest fruits. At the 
precise moment that he led his party he was just the man 
required, one whose glove was more felt than his hand, 
though his light touch and easy grasp concealed its strength, 
sense and sincerity. His motto, like that of a previous 
and similar age, was 

" Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem, 
Dulce est desipere in loco," 

but his counsel was as sound as his folly was attractive. 



254 PALMERSTON 



II.— PALMERSTON 

The Hon. Henry John Temple, afterwards third Viscount 
Palmerston, was born at Broadlands, near Romsey, on the 
20th of October, 1784, the eldest son of Henry, the second 
viscount, by Mary, daughter of Benjamin Mee of Bath, a 
lady of considerable personal attraction and fortune. The 
Temples were originally an English stock, but they had 
been much connected with Ireland in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. Sir John Temple was Speaker of the 
Irish House of Commons, and his brother, Sir William, 
Master of the Rolls. In 1722 the family had received an 
Irish peerage. The second Lord Palmerston, who was 
settled in Hampshire and sat in the English House of 
Commons for forty years, attained little distinction in 
politics, but he and his wife were persons of taste and 
fashion. They travelled abroad, spent a good deal of 
money and were hospitable and popular figures in society. 

Henry Temple was for some time in Italy as a child, 
but in 1795 he was sent to Harrow, where Aberdeen and 
Althorp were his schoolfellows. There, according to a 
contemporary account, he was thought the best-tempered 
and most plucky boy in the school, though he achieved 
no classical successes. In 1800 he went on to Edinburgh to 
attend the lectures, and he subsequently proceeded to 
St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degree 
jure natalium. 

In 1802 he succeeded his father, when he was only 
seventeen years of age, Lord Malmesbury and Lord 
Chichester being left as his guardians. He had selected 
politics as his profession, and he made three unsuccessful 
attempts to get into Parliament. Of the first of these, at 
Cambridge, Byron wrote: 

" Then would I view each rival wight, 
Petty and Palmerston survey, 
Who canvass there, with all their might, 
Against the next elective day."* 

* Byron, " Hours of Idleness." 



EAKLY OFFICE 255 

In April, 1807, when he was twenty-two, he was ap- 
pointed a Junior Lord of the Admiralty, through Lord 
Malmesbury's interest with the Duke of Portland, and 
shortly afterwards was elected member for Newport in the 
Isle of Wight. His abilities were as promising as his 
friends. On the resignation and death of Portland in 
October, 1809, Perceval sent for Palmerston, then only just 
twenty-five, and offered him the post of Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. Palmerston wisely refused. Writing to Lord 
Malmesbury, he says : " Of course one's vanity and ambition 
would lead to accept the brilliant of!er first proposed; but 
it is throwing for a great stake, and where much is to be 
gained, very much also may be lost.''* He accepted, how- 
ever, the office of Secretary at War, which dealt with the 
finances of the Army and was quite separate from the 
Cabinet place of Secretary for War and the Colonies. It 
obtained for him admission to the Privy Council. In this 
post he remained for nearly nineteen years, the part of his 
life during which he was a professed Tory. 

Palmerston now devoted himself to his work as an 
official and a landlord; to making occasional speeches on 
a few subjects in the House of Commons; and to going 
into society, where he was much sought for and extremely 
popular. He was content to limit himself to his own 
duties and showed little signs of ambition or excessive 
energy, though there was one question, that of Catholic 
emancipation, which he always supported actively. 
During Liverpool's long administration he was successively 
offered the place of Chief Secretary for Ireland, one of the 
governorships in India, with the eventual promise of the 
Viceroyalty, and the post of Postmaster-General with a 
British peerage. All these he declined, being content to 
lead his regular life in London, at Broadlands and in 
Ireland, superintending his estates and his racing stables, 
mixing with his friends and conducting the affairs of his 
department. Thus for the first half of his career he took 
no prominent part in politics, although he had plenty 
of opportunities of doing so. 

Since 1811 he had sat for Cambridge University, and 
* Bulwer, i. 92. 



256 PALMEESTON 

had been re-elected there several times, but in 1826 the 
government candidates were allowed to stand against him. 
He appealed to his chief, the Prime Minister, but could get 
no redress. After a hard fight he succeeded in keeping his 
seat, mainly by the help of the Whigs, but he much resented 
the Tories' action m the matter. " I told Lord Liverpool,'' 
he says, " that if I was beat I should quit the government. 
This was the first decided step towards a breach between 
me and the Tories, and they were the aggressors."* 

In April 1827 Canning became Prime Minister. Palmer- 
ston, who had now been twenty years in the government, 
was put into the Cabinet and was again offered the post of 
Chancellor of the Exchequer. This time he accepted, but 
soon afterwards Canning receded from his promise, saying 
that he must keep the place for himself. He suggested, 
however, that Palmerston should be Governor-General of 
India. This Palmerston did not want, preferring to remain 
on in his old place of Secretary at War. In August Canning 
died and Goderich succeeded him. Like his predecessor, 
he also offered the Exchequer to Palmerston, but again 
the offer fell through and. the post was given to Herries, 
largely owing to the interference of the King, who disliked 
Palmerston. In his account of the Privy Council at 
Windsor Palmerston says: " Goderich then asked the King 
if he would not see me and explain the matter to me. I 
went in; and George assured me how much esteem and 
regard he felt for me, and how happy he should have been 
to have had my services at the Exchequer if he had not had 
the good fortune of obtaining those of Mr. Herries, un- 
questionably the fittest man in England for the office. I 
bowed, entirely acquiesced, and thanked His Majesty for 
the gracious and flattering manner in which he had spoken 
to me."t 

When the Duke of Wellington came into office early in 
1828 Palmerston and the other Canningites stayed on with 
him for a few months, but they then left on the East Retford 
disfranchisement question, as it was clear that the govern- 
ment was committed to a thoroughly Tory policy. Palmer- 
* Bulwer, i. 154, 155. f Ihid., i. 378; Wolf, 397. 



FOEEIGN SECRETARY 257 

ston's views had for some time been approximating to those 
of the moderate Whigs, and in January of this year he had 
written of the latter to his brother: " I very sincerely regret 
their loss, as I like them much better than the Tories and 
agree with them much more/'* 

In 1830 Wellington approached both Melbourne and 
Palmerston and asked them to join his government, but 
this they declined to do unless Grey and Lansdowne were 
brought in also. Croker was sent by the Duke to see 
Palmerston in order to get him to reconsider this decision. 
Palmerston recounts the ' interview in his diary: " Croker 
said, ' Well, I will bring the matter to a point. Are you 
resolved or are you not to vote for parliamentary reform V 
I said, ' I am.' ' Well then," said he, ' there is no use in 
talking to you any more on this subject. You and I, 
I am grieved to see, shall never again sit on the same bench 
together." "f This conversation may be said to mark 
Palmerston 's definite change to the Whig side of politics. 

Accordingly, when Grey soon afterwards was com- 
missioned to form a government, he offered Palmerston 
the Foreign Office. During many years Palmerston had 
interested himself in European affairs and had kept up a 
constant correspondence with his brothe." William Temple, 
who was in the diplomatic service. He hT.d also travelled 
a good deal abroad, and had many friends oi' the Continent. 
The Foreign Office was therefore a very suii able place for 
him. He accepted it with pleasure, and at ^.nce plunged 
into work that interested him and that he was thoroughly 
competent to deal with. In a short time he became a 
strong and efficient Foreign Minister and a valuable 
addition to the government. One of his first acts vvas the 
definite confirmation of Belgium's independence. It has 
been cited as the most enduring monument of his policy. 
Greville says that he was at this time unpopular in the 
Foreign Office and with the diplomats, though few denied 
his capacity and industry. Talleyrand, indeed, thought 
him the most capable man in the Cabinet. % 

In 1834 Melbourne succeeded Grey, and a few months 
* Bulwer, i. 220. f lUd., i. 383. % areville, iii. 360 (sense). 



258 PALMERSTON 

later tlie King suddenly dismissed the ministers. Palmer- 
ston, writing to his brother on November 16, says : 

" We are all out; turned out neck and crop. Wellington 
is Prime Minister, and we give up the seals, etc., to-morrow 
at St. James's at two. . . . This attempt to reinstall the 
Tories cannot possibly last ; the country will not stand it ; 
the House of Commons will not bear it ! . . . I shall now 
go down to Broadlands and get some hunting; and if 
Parliament is not dissolved may perhaps run over to Paris 
for three weeks in January."* 

His forecast was correct. Early in 1835 Peel was com- 
pelled to resign. Melbourne returned to the Treasury and 
Palmerston to the Foreign Office. He had lost his seat at 
the election of 1834, but he now reappeared as member for 
Tiverton. He had not so far made many political allies 
among the Whigs, though Melbourne was his close friend. 
Fully occupied with the business of his own department, 
he had comparatively few opportunities of distinguishing 
himself in the House of Commons, but on his own ques- 
tions he was supreme, and during the next six years his 
reputation was immensely advanced. His policy as regards 
continental relations was modelled on that of Canning — 
the maintenance of England's position in general support 
of freedom — and he was determined to make her a principal 
figure in Europe, feared and respected by all. 

In the eleven years of his control of the Foreign Office 
from 1830 to 1841 he had, in the words of Sanders, " raised 
the prestige of England to a height which she had not 
occupied since Waterloo. He had created Belgium, saved 
Portugal and Spain from absolutism, rescued Turkey from 
Russia and the highway to India from France."! 

At the end of 1839 he had at last taken to matrimony, 
having married at the age of fifty-five Lord Melbourne's 
sister, the Dowager Countess Cowper, a lady a few years 
younger than himself. She was a famous hostess, distin- 
guished by her charm, intellect and experience, and she 
materially assisted her husband in his work. Their home 
at Cambridge House, Piccadilly, now the Naval and Military 
* Bulwer, ii. 207. f Nat. Biog., ivi. 22. 



HIS INDEPENDENCE 259 

Club, was the principal social and political centre in London. 
Thus, when the Whig ministry resigned in 1841 Palmerston 
had risen to a very high place in the estimation of the 
country. Physically he was as strenuous as he was men- 
tally. In this year Lady Lyttelton records his " rowing for 
two or three hours before breakfast and also . . . bathing 
and swimming in the Thames at the same time of day."* 

During his five years of opposition from 1841 to 1846 
Palmerston took rather more interest in domestic politics 
than he had done hitherto, though he kept closely in touch 
with foreign affairs. In 1846 Peel resigned and Lord John 
Russell became Prime Minister. He was rather nervous of 
Palmerston's stalwart policy, but he reappointed him to 
his old post. The revolutions of 1848 afforded the Foreign 
Secretary plenty of opportunities of exercising his activity, 
and his activities were not always very felicitous. He cared 
very little for precedents when a principle was at stake, and 
such incidents as his reception of the Hungarian revolu- 
tionary leaders took away the breath of the Queen, her 
Consort and her Prime Minister. These occurrences in 
process of time led to difficulties and criticism. The Queen 
disagreed with his policy on the Continent and further con- 
sidered that she should be consulted before the despatches 
were sent oS. Russell, though he generally accepted 
Palmerston's views in the main, held that his methods were 
irregular and might tend to embroil the government. 
Continual reprimands were sent to him from Windsor, and 
eventually the Queen wrote a minute indicating the 
procedure that she desired. To this Palmerston for a time 
conformed, but he soon recurred to his old habits. He 
was sure of the soundness of his preaching and his practice 
and he knew that he had public opinion behind him. ' ' The 
attack upon his policy had not merely failed ; it had covered 
him with fresh popularity. Four years of office had de- 
prived him of the confidence of the Crown; but he had 
gained, in exchange for it, the confidence of the people."! 

In 1851 came the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon. Of this 
Palmerston privately expressed his approval to the French 
* Lyttelton, 311. f Walpole, " Eussell," ii. 63. 



260 PALMERSTON 

Ambassador without taking tlie pleasure of the Queen or 
communicating with the Cabinet. It was maintained that 
he had transgressed the royal injunctions and ignored 
his colleagues, and in consequence Russell felt bound to 
relieve him of his office. In December Palmerston ac- 
cordingly left the government. It is now generally believed 
that this move was a pretext to get rid of a minister who 
was too democratic in his Continental policy fort he abso- 
lutist tendencies of the Prussian Court, of the Orleans family 
and perhaps of the British Crown. Certainly his dismissal 
was regarded as a blow to liberalism all over Europe 
where he was thought a devil incarnate. The Germans 
used to say — 

" Hat der Teufel einen Solm 
So ist er sicher Palmerston."* 

But Palmerston did not have to wait long for his revenge. 
Two months later he moved an amendment against a 
government bill on the militia. The Cabinet was defeated 
and at once resigned. Palmerston remarked " I have had 
my tit-for-tat with John Russell, "t 

Lord Derby now became Prime Minister and asked 
Palmerston to join him, strongly against the Queen's 
wishes. " If you do it," she said, " he will never rest till 
he is your master. "f Palmerston, however, declined. 
The Tories only remained in office for ten months when 
their budget was thrown out and they in turn retired. 

A Coalition ministry of Whigs and Peelites was then 
formed under Lord Aberdeen and in this Palmerston became 
Home Secretary. The work was entirely new and not of 
very great interest to him, but he discharged it with the 
same diligence, facility and success that he had shown in 
other departments. Foreign affairs were still his principal 
concern, and seeing that the government's policy on the 
Eastern Question was weak and indecisive he did his best 
to infuse vigour into it. But the counsels of the Coalition 
Cabinet were halting and divided, and strive as he would 
he could not vitalize them. To bring matters to an issue 

* Nat. Biog., Ivi. 26. f Eeid, " Russell," 195. 

t Buckle, iii. 343. 



PRIME MINISTER 261 

he resigned his post in December 1853. This had its effect ; 
an ultimatum was sent to St. Petersburg and Palmerston 
resumed his ojBEice. He had done some good and his 
bold action had confirmed his reputation. During the early- 
part of the Crimean War Palmerston's courage and advice 
were of the highest value. The campaign, however, went 
badly, the Opposition denounced the government's mis- 
management and early in 1855 Russell, who was also a 
member of the Cabinet, sent in his resignation. Aberdeen 
followed his example, and after both Russell and Derby 
had failed to form a ministry the Queen found herself 
obliged to send for Palmerston. This was a tremendous 
change from the attitude of three years before, but the 
Queen, who had adhered to the practice of the constitution, 
now recognized the popular desire. In a memorandum 
of her conversation with Lord Derby on January 31, she 
notes his saying " that the whole country cried out for 
Lord Palmerston as the only man fit for carrying on the 
war with success, and he owned the necessity of having him 
in the government, were it even only to satisfy the French 
government."* The Queen accordingly wrote to Palmer- 
ston, who replied at once : 

" 144, Piccadilly, 

" February 4, 1855. 

*' Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to Your 
Majesty and with a deep sense of the importance of the 
commission which Your Majesty asks whether he will under- 
take, he hastens to acknowledge the gracious communica- 
tion which he has just had the honour to receive from Your 
Majesty. 

" Viscount Palmerston has reason to think that he can 
undertake with a fair prospect of success to form an 
Administration which will command the confidence of 
parliament and effectually conduct public affairs in the 
present momentous crisis, and as Your Majesty has been 
graciously pleased to say that if such is his opinion, Your 
Majesty authorises him to proceed immediately to the 
accomplishment of the task he will at once take steps for 
* " Letters of Queen Victoria," iii. 102. 



262 PALMEESTON 

the purpose ; and he trusts that he may be able in the course 
of to-morrow to report to Your Majesty whether his present 
expectations are in the way to be realised."* 

Ten days later he writes to his brother: " A month ago 
if any man had asked me to say what was one of the most 
improbable events I should have said my being Prime 
Minister. Aberdeen was there, Derby was head of one great 
party, John Russell of the other, and yet, in about ten 
days' time they all gave way like straws before the wind, 
and so here am I writing to you from Downing Street as 
First Lord of the Treasury, "f 

He was an old man, and it was generally believed that 
his health would not stand the fresh strain he had to face, 
but he quickly showed himself as capable of composing a 
Cabinet as he had been of directing a department. " He 
was seventy-one," says Lord Morley; " he had been nearly 
forty years in office ; he had worked at the Admiralty, War 
Department, Foreign Office, Home Office; he had served 
under ten Prime Ministers — Portland, Perceval, Liverpool, 
Canning, Goderich, Wellington, Grey, Melbourne, Russell, 
Aberdeen. . . . The press he knew how to manage. In 
every art of parliamentary sleight of hand he was an expert, 
and he suited the temper of the times, while old maxims 
of government and policy were tardily expiring, and the 
forces of the new era were in their season gathering to a 

head. "J 

The situation was bad, but Palmerston rose to the 
occasion. The war was brought to a conclusion, and a 
satisfactory treaty of peace was signed. The Queen began 
to appreciate Paimerston's abilities, and marked her altered 
views by giving him the Garter. Two years later the Indian 
Mutiny afforded him another opportunity of showing his 
strength and discretion in a crisis. The ensuing general 
election confirmed the Liberals with a large majority, and 
after several easy sessions in Parliament Palmerston re- 
marked that, like the Roman Consuls in a triumph, he ought 

* " Letters of Queen Victoria," iii. 122. f AsHey, ii. 76. 

X Morley, " Gladstone," 1. 543. 



f^^^f^^^;•' 




(t. Richmond del. 



henky john temple 
3rd viscount PALMERSTON 



To faoe page 262: 



HIS SECOND MINISTEY 263 

to have someone to remind him that he was not, as a 
minister, immortal. Soon afterwards, on February 19, 
1858, he was outvoted by a combination of parties on an 
unimportant division. He had become, perhaps, a little too 
self-confident, and it is said that his rather brusque and 
dictatorial manner was the cause of some of his followers 
not supporting him as they might have been expected to do. 

Palmerston resigned and Lord Derby became Prime 
Minister, remaining in power for over a year. The Tories 
were then defeated, and, after Lord Granville had been 
unable to form a government, Palmerston again took office, 
and held his position from June 1859 until his death in 
October 1865. His second ministry, however, was not 
remarkable for any legislative measures of importance. 
He was nearing eighty, and was content to carry on the 
regular business of the country, to keep his party in hand 
and to maintain his undisputed lead of the House of 
Commons. The admiration that his pluck, energy and 
dexterity evoked was almost universal. Lord Chancellor 
Westbury, writing to him in 1860, says : " I cannot close 
this note without expressing to you with the most un- 
feigned sincerity my admiration of your masterly leadership 
during this most difiicult session. Great knowledge, great 
judgment, great temper and forbearance, infinite skill and 
tact, matchless courtesy and great oratorical talent rising 
with each important occasion, having in a most eminent- 
degree marked your conduct of the Government and your 
leadership of the House of Commons."* 

Palmerston, indeed, had become an institution in 
the country. In 1860 one of his horses almost won the 
Derby, and his name and personality were as well known 
and popular as those of any man in England. Up to 1864 
he rode and shot, went out to dinner and mixed in society 
with his accustomed geniality and vigour. But after this 
signs of failing began, for though he had an excellent con- 
stitution and was temperate and healthy, his age began to 
tell severely on him, and towards the end he used to sit 
through the debates in the House of Commons weary 
* Ashley, ii. 203, 204. 

18 



264 PALMERSTON 

and almost asleep. It gradually became clear that he 
could not last very long, and soon after the general election 
in the summer of 1865 he had a seizure. He remained on 
at Brocket, and there on October 18 he was found dead 
at his work. " The opened despatch box on his table, and 
the unfinished letter on his desk testified that he was at his 
post to the last."* He left no issue. 

Mr. Lytton Strachey in " Queen Victoria "' thus describes 
"the gay portentous Palmerston '': "He was a tall big 
man . . . with a jaunty air, a large face, dyed whiskers, 
and a long sardonic upper lip. . . . He lived by instinct — 
by a quick eye and a strong hand, a dexterous management 
of every crisis as it arose, a half-unconscious sense of the 
vital elements in a situation. He was very bold . . . but 
there is a point beyond which boldness becomes rashness — 
and beyond that point Palmerston never went.''! 

In private life he was a man of exceptional energy, a good 
landlord, a keen sportsman, a genial and amusing member 
of society, an excellent husband and a loyal friend. Office 
he liked, regarding it as the legitimate prize of a public man, 
but he never avoided its duties or responsibilities. His 
management of the House of Commons was as adroit and 
fortunate as his general administration. His sayings are 
singularly characteristic. " I believe weakness and irre- 
solution," he wrote to Stratford Canning in 1850, " are on 
the whole the worst faults that a statesman can have;"{ 
and again: "I have never known any public men who 
after a certain tenure of office did not pray to be quit of it, 
nor any who, having been turned out of office, did not wish 
after a very short time to get back to it."§ Of Louis 
Napoleon he said: "His mind is as full of schemes as a 
warren is of rabbits." He did not hesitate when necessary 
to criticize his colleagues. When Gladstone opposed his 
plan of fortification for the south coast Palmerston said 
to the Queen: " It is better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to 
lose Portsmouth and Plymouth." || Of a dull Scottish peer 
who coveted an honour he remarked: "Give him the 
Thistle; he is such an ass he is sure to eat it." His de- 

* Ashley, ii. 273. f Strachey, 151-152. J AsHey, ii. 287. 
§ Ihid., ii. 317. || Nat. Biog., Ivi. 30. 



HIS CHARACTER 265 

scrip tion of the typical Englishman is famous: " Fat man 
with a white hat in the twopenny omnibus."* 

He was a ready debater, though no great orator. " His 
style/' says Mr. George Russell, " was not only devoid of 
ornament and rhetorical device, but it was slipshod and 
untidy in the last degree. He eked out his sentences with 
* Hum ' and ' Hah,' he cleared his throat, and flourished 
his pocket handkerchief, and sucked his orange ; he rounded 
his periods with ' You know what I mean ' and ' all that 
kind of thing,' and seemed actually to revel in an anti- 
climax : ' I think the hon. member's proposal an out- 
rageous violation of constitutional propriety, a daring 
departure from traditional policy, and, in short, a great 
mistake.' "f 

One of his especial arts was always to seem in tune with 
the predilections of the majority and to voice the opinion 
of the country, but though he had his fingers on the keys 
his style was casual and never laboured. Lord Shaftes- 
bury thought that his light and jaunty manner did him 
great disservice in his early years. Eut beneath this 
debonair style and apparent insouciance there lay the 
most sterling qualities. " Look to Lord Roehampton," says 
Lady Montfort in " Endymion," " he is the man. He does 
not care a rush whether the revenue increases or declines. 
He is thinking of real politics : foreign affairs ; maintaining 
our power in Europe. "J Yet he never lost sight of detail. 
His experience of his own department was profound, and 
Gladstone called his handwriting one of the two perfect 
things he had known. § 

" He had won," says Ashley, " a character in Europe for 
being resolute, and was regarded as the embodiment of 
English pugnacity." An excellent judge of character, 
a firm friend and a generous enemy, he had consummate 
sagacity and patience, while his power of concentration 
was enormous. Always willing to wait, he rarely made 
material mistakes. His critics have called him a weak 
Liberal, but his early efforts for the extinction of the slave 

* Russell, " Collections," 60. t l^i^L., 167. 

X Disraeli, " Endymion," chap. 64. 
§ Rosebery, " Miscellanies," i. 219. 



266 PALMEKSTON 

trade and his vigorous support of democracy in Europe 
are hardly consonant with such a character. 

Foreign politics were his principal interest; in them he 
was on his own ground, and he had the rare knack of know- 
ing how to interest the British people in them. Domestic 
affairs meant much less to him than they did to most of 
his contemporaries, yet when he was Home Secretary he 
was able to give a very real weight to his department. 

Somewhat resembling Melbourne in his easy manners 
and his devil-may-care attitude, he was, in fact, burning 
with an active patriotism. The famous words Civis 
Romanus sum embodied his beliefs and his aims.* For 
him his country was the best country in the world, and as 
far as lay in his power he would maintain its position against 
all comers. To this bull-dog creed was due his popularity 
and much of his success. His Whig colleagues often re- 
garded him askance, for his ways were not always theirs ; 
but intrigue and self-seeking were entirely foreign to his 
nature, and detached as he was from many of their views 
he always stuck firmly to them. 

He held political office for forty-seven years, vying in 
that distinction with the Duke of Newcastle; he sat in 
Parliament for well over half a century; he was a member 
of a dozen administrations; he was Prime Minister, and 
led the House of Commons when past eighty, a record 
thoroughly in keeping with his character, pluck, and 
endurance. 

Palmerston was indeed a fine type of an intelligent and 
virile Englishman, able, active and straightforward. He 
looked at questions on their merits, but before all things 
he was a patriot. To his conduct of the public affairs of 
Great Britain during the long years in which he held office 
may largely be ascribed the dominating and prosperous 
position in the world to which she subsequently rose. 

This was the end of the Whigs. But tradition dies hard, 
and Mr. Gladstone, through his wife, and Lord Eosebery, 
though his mother, have maintained the old Whig system 
of political ancestry almost down to the present day. 
* Hansard, Speech of June 25, 1850. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE LAST TOKIES 

ABERDEEN AND DERBY 

Canning with his brilliant democratic policy and Peel 
with his solid domestic reforms had given England a new 
lease of life, but for the moment their party was shattered. 
The government of the second was defeated in 1846, the 
foreign policy of the first had lost credit two years later. 
The Tories, checked, bewildered and divided, were enraged 
with the men who had, as they thought, betrayed them and 
led them astray, albeit they were dimly conscious that the 
new programmes had much in them which would be hard to 
beat. The large majority remained Protectionist and anti- 
democratic, but they were without a guiding spirit. They 
cast about for a leader, and unable to find one exactly to 
their mind they fell back upon a peer of birth, talents and 
fortune, who had recently been a Whig and who, therefore, 
might be regarded as a moderate man and one likely to 
bring both their wings into line. The minority, the 
Peelites, followed a similar course, and chose another peer, 
hardly less distinguished, who believed in their doctrines 
but was still a sound Tory. Both selections seemed well 
enough made, but unfortunately the new chiefs were men 
of cross-bench minds, not intensely interested in politics 
and little suited to inspire or direct a party in distress. 
The natural results ensued. The two lords hesitated to 
take office, and compromised with ministers when in oppo- 
sition. Their old beliefs and their other avocations re- 
strained and reclaimed them, and after some short and 
vacillating spells of power they each made way for a man of 
the people who knew what he wanted and had the courage 
and the ability to do it. 

267 



268 ABERDEEN 



I.— ABERDEEN 

The Hon. George Gordon, afterwards fourth Earl of 
Aberdeen, was born at Edinburgh on the 28th of January, 
1784. He was the eldest son of George Gordon, Lord 
Haddo, and grandson of the third earl. His mother 
was Charlotte, daughter of William Baird, of Newbyth, 
and sister of Sir David Baird, the distinguished soldier. 
The Gordons were an ancient Scots family who had risen 
to distinction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
and were the owners of considerable estates in the county 
from which they took their title. They were an active and 
energetic race. Of Lord Haddo's six sons two became 
admirals, two colonels, one was a distinguished diplomatist 
and a privy councillor, and one Prime Minister. 

George Gordon's father died when he was seven years 
old, his mother when he was eleven and his grandfather 
when he was seventeen. He was left under the guardian- 
ship of William Pitt and Lord Melville, who interested them- 
selves seriously in their trust. He was first sent to Harrow, 
where Althorp and Palmerston were his schoolfellows. 
Then, on succeeding to the earldom in 1801, he went for a 
tour on the Continent, spending much of his time in Greece. 
He came back an ardent Philhellene and soon afterwards 
founded the Athenian Society. An article that he wrote 
on the topography of Troy gained him Byron's lines: 

" First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be seen 
The travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen."* 

In 1804 he matriculated and took his degree as a noble- 
man at St. John's College, Cambridge. The next year 
he married Lady Catherine Hamilton, daughter of John 
James, first Marquess of Abercorn, by whom he had 
several children. 

In December 1806 Lord Aberdeen was elected a Scottish 

representative peer, and as a follower of his late guardian 

Pitt he joined the Tory party. In the course of the next 

two years he was invested a Knight of the Thistle and was 

* Byron, " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." 




T. Lavirence pin.v. 



GEORGE GORDON 

4th earl of ABERDEEN 



To face page 26S 



EAELY LIFE 269 

made a Fellow of the Eoyal Society. He occasionally 
spoke in the House of Lords, but was chiefly occupied 
with art and history, becoming President of the Society 
of Antiquaries, and writing several words on architecture. 

In 1812 he lost his wife. He turned his attention to 
active work, and the next year was sent on a special mission 
to Austria. A few months later he was appointed am- 
bassador at Vienna, when he was not yet thirty years 
of age. Here he formed a close friendship with Prince 
Metternich the statesman. A contemporary calls him at 
this time, "of a sound and cultivated understanding, 
impenetrable discretion and polite but somewhat grave 
and restrained manners."* 

He accompanied the Emperor Francis through the 
Leipsic campaign and saw some military service. Sub- 
sequently he represented Great Britain at the Congress of 
Chatillon and signed the Treaty of Paris. For these ser- 
vices he was in 1814 created a peer of Great Britain and 
sworn a privy councillor. 

In 1815 he married as his second wife Harriet, daughter 
of the Hon. James Douglas, of the Morton family, and 
widow of Viscount Hamilton. She was a sister-in-law 
of his late wife. 

He now settled down in Scotland, and for some years 
again enjoyed a period of political repose. He was content 
to live quietly at Haddo House, interesting himself in agri- 
culture, forestry, the management of his estates and the 
care of his growing family. His diplomatic experiences 
had confirmed his Tory beliefs, and he still distrusted inno- 
vations. Accordingly on Liverpool's death in 1827 he 
came forward and spoke against Canning's administration. 
A year later he joined the Duke of Wellington's govern- 
ment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. When 
approving this appointment George IV. said of him that 
" he was an excellent politician and that it was very 
advantageous to get a person in the Duchy who would 
keep Knighton down."t 

On the secession of the Canningites from the government 
* Gibbs, i. 16, note. f Colchester, iii. 539. 



270 ABERDEEN 

four montlis later Aberdeen was appointed Foreign Secre- 
tary. It might have been expected that his knowledge 
of Continental affairs would have fitted him for this posi- 
tion, but he seems to have had little initiative or decision 
of his own. He was all for non-interference abroad and 
clearly showed the Metternich influence. His tenure of 
office, however, included the recognition by Turkey of 
the independence of Greece and that of Louis Philippe 
by Great Britain. In domestic affairs he manifested some 
signs of liberalism by his support of the repeal of the 
Test Acts. 

After 1830 Aberdeen remained in opposition until Sir 
Robert Peel's short administration of 1834r-1835, when 
he acted as Secretary for War and the Colonies, though 
without showing any special strength or ability. He was 
still regarded as a cautious, narrow though very level- 
headed Scotsman. 

During the second Melbourne ministry Aberdeen was 
again in opposition and little to the fore, though in 1840 
he introduced a bill which was intended to avert the 
threatened schism in the Scottish Church. It was a half- 
and-half measure, unsatisfactory to both sides, and was soon 
withdrawn ; but three years later a similar bill was passed 
for the same purpose, though it also had but little effect. 
On Peel returning to office in 1841, Aberdeen resumed 
his old post as Foreign Secretary. His conduct of affairs 
now showed rather more character than previously and was 
distinctly beneficial to the country, though still inclined to 
be pacific. To his conciliatory policy was largely due the 
prevention of hostilities with the United States in 1842 
and with France two years later, for generally speaking his 
line of action was eminently discreet. He was a loyal 
follower of Peel and held progressive views in some phases 
of home politics, for he gave as cordial and unhesitating 
support to the repeal of the Corn Laws as he had previously 
done to Catholic relief. He left office with the rest of the 
government in 1846 and showed remarkable generosity 
to Palmerston, who succeeded him as Foreign Secretary. 
Aberdeen desired to have an interview with him and said : 



LEADER OF THE PEELITES 271 

" When I came into office five years ago, you wanted to 
come back again and tm*n me out, and you accordingly 
attacked me in every way you could, as you had a perfect 
right to do. Circumstances are very different now. I do 
not want to turn you out, and I never mean to come into 
office again, and I am therefore come to tell you that I am 
ready to give you every information that may be of use 
to you and every assistance I can.''* Palmerston was much 
touched at this spontaneous offer from a political opponent, 
and it probably had a great deal to do with his accepting 
Aberdeen as a chief some years later. 

For the next few years Aberdeen again took no prominent 
part in Parliament, speaking only occasionally, and then on 
foreign politics. But the death of his old chief in 1850 
made him the recognized leader of the Peelites, and he was 
obliged to come more to the front. A year later he was 
asked to join Lord John Russell's reconstructed govern- 
ment. This he refused to do owing to differences of opinion 
on the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill, and for the 
same reason he declined to form an administration of his 
own. In 1852, however, after the fall of Russell's govern- 
ment, an exchange of letters took place between them as to 
a possible coalition of the Whigs and the moderate Con- 
servatives. Aberdeen wrote : 

" Haddo House, 
" My DEAR Lord John, " ^'P'^^'^ 16, 1852. 

" It was no doubt rather a strong proceeding on the 
part of the Duke of Newcastle to suggest, to you of all men, 
the propriety and expediency of sinking the title of Whig. 
It is true that neither he nor I have the least desire or in- 
tention of assuming the appellation; but I presume that you 
would never think of acting with us unless you were per- 
suaded that our views were liberal; and assuredly, in any 
connection with you, we should not be prepared to abandon 
a Conservative policy. 

" Although the term may appear a little contradictory, 
I believe that ' Conservative Progress ' best describes the 

* GreviUe, v. 406. 



272 ABEEDEEN 

principles which ought practically to influence the conduct 
of any government at the present day. This was PeeFs 
policy, and I think will continue that of all his friends. 
For one, looking at the actual state of affairs, I have no 
objection that the progress should be somewhat more rapid 
than perhaps he ever intended. 

" Ever most sincerely yours, 

" Aberdeen."* 

The result of this correspondence was that a basis of 
agreement was established between the two statesmen. 
This enabled the Queen, on the fall of Lord Derby's ministry 
in December 1852, to send for Aberdeen and to ask him 
to attempt a combination between the two progressive 
parties. He succeeded, and formed an apparently strong 
Coalition government of Whigs and Peelites, Eussell and 
Palmerston being the principal of the former, and Gladstone, 
Herbert and himself of the latter. Such a promising and 
popular collection of politicians had not been seen since 
1806 . Although most of them had previously been strenuous 
opponents, they now agreed in the main on domestic affairs, 
and they were all in favour of Free Trade and moderate 
reform. But, like most coalitions, they soon fell apart. 
Aberdeen himself had called his venture " A great experi- 
ment, hitherto unattempted, and of which the success 
must be considered doubtful."'! Party divisions began in 
the Cabinet, each section thinking that it had not its fair 
share of influence. Within a year of the ministry's forma- 
tion, Eussell tells Aberdeen that " The Whigs write to me 
imagining that I have some influence in politics and 
ecclesiastical appointments. It is a mistake." And 
Aberdeen replies: " To say the truth, I thought that I had 
done little else than comply with your wishes either at 
the formation of the Government or ever since. "J 

Besides these minor differences at home the Eastern 
question had arisen abroad. The vehemence of Palmerston 
strove to overbear Aberdeen's pacific views; it had only a 

* Walpole, " Russell," ii. 156. t Morley, " Gladstone," i. 449. 

% Walpole. " Russell," ii. 165. 



PKIME MINISTER 273 

half -success, and without any decided policy the ministry 
gradually drifted into the Crimean War. This was 
contrary to all Aberdeen's beliefs. He had said earlier 
of his government: " England will occupy her true position 
in Europe as the constant advocate of moderation and 
peace."* His wish was now to be frustrated. Writing to 
Russell early in 1854 he says: " I wish that I could feel as 
much at ease on the subject of the unhappy war in which we 
are about to be engaged. The abstract justice of the cause, 
although indisputable, is but a poor consolation for the 
inevitable calamities of all war, or for a decision which I 
am not without fear may prove to have been impolitic and 
unwise. My conscience upbraids me the more because 
seeing, as I did from the first, all that was to be appre- 
hended, it is possible that by a little more energy and 
vigour, not on the Danube, but in Downing Street, it might 
have been prevented.^f 

The Prime Minister had no enthusiasm, the Cabinet was 
at loggerheads, the military preparations were defective 
and all failures were attributed to the government. 
Aberdeen was worried and always looked ill. Palmerston 
complained and urged him to put more energy into the 
campaign. Russell criticized and took the same view. 
But Aberdeen was unwilling to displace the Duke of New- 
castle, who was Secretary for War. He hesitated and 
temporized. Losses, sufferings and expenditure irritated 
the public. Eventually in January 1855, on a hostile 
motion to enquire into the conduct of the war, Russell left 
the Cabinet. It was in this debate that Bulwer Lytton said : 
" Dismiss your government and save your army.''{ A week 
later, on the motion being carried, Aberdeen himself 
resigned. The Coalition government had been a thorough 
failure. Disraeli wrote of it: " The country was governed 
for two years by all its ablest men, who by the end of that 
term had succeeded by their coalesced genius in reducing 
that country to a state of desolation and despair." § 

The Queen, however, stood by her Prime Minister, and 

* Morley, " Gladstone," i. 449. f Walpole, " Eussell," ii. 204. 
% Buckle, iii. 556. § Disraeli, " Endymion," chap. 100. 



274 ABERDEEN 

to mark her confidence in him gave him the Garter. But 
the consolation was of little value. His active work was 
done. Henceforward he took little share in politics, though 
for the remaining six years of his life he did his best to keep 
his followers together and to exercise a moderating in- 
fluence. He died at Argyll House, St. James's, on the 
14th of December, 1860, aged seventy-six. He left several 
children. The present marquess, who has represented the 
Crown in Ireland and Canada, is his grandson. 

Aberdeen was dark, spare, pale and grave in appearance, 
cold and formal in manner. As a young man he had a 
distinctly attractive face, and he is the subject of one of 
Lawrence's best portraits. In 1846, however. Lady Lyttel- 
ton calls him " more of a scarecrow than ever, and quite 
as stiff as timber. ' ' * Though a dull and ungraceful speaker, 
his matter was always sound and impressive. In private 
life he was a delightful companion, full of reading and 
general information, while his real interests in classical 
history, in art and in agriculture were shown by his 
practical work. Among his few intimates he was held in 
the highest veneration. Sir James Graham called him " a 
perfect gentleman . . . who is honest and direct, and who 
will not brook insincerity in others. "| Lady Peel, writing 
just after her husband's death, says that Aberdeen was " the 
friend whom he most valued, for whom he had the sincerest 
affection, whom he esteemed higher than any. "J 

As a foreign minister he was timid and restrained, but 
in domestic politics his ideas were thoroughly advanced 
and liberal. Without any special abilities he was a 
direct and singularly courageous advocate of unpopular 
opinions if he believed them to be right. In the face of such 
able and energetic men as Palmerston and Russell, who 
were competing for what he did not covet, he had little 
chance, and his ministry of clever men, led by a compro- 
mising chief, soon fell in pieces like similar coalitions before 
it. But his own reputation did not suffer. ' ' He belonged, ' ' 
says Delane, " to that class of statesmen who are great 

* Lyttelton, 358. f Morley, " Gladstone," i. 449. 

X Rosebery, " Miscellanies," i. 210. 



HIS CHARACTER 275 

without being brilliant, who succeed without ambition, 
who without eloquence become famous, who retain their 
power even when deprived of place. He denied that his 
vocation was politics, but his friends knew him better; 
they appreciated his clear head, his tolerant nature, his 
vast experience and his perfect integrity."* 

Aberdeen was a Tory by origin and education, but his 
natural good sense and his knowledge of foreign countries 
had shown him the advantages to be derived by England 
from reasonable progress and constitutional development. 
Not a candidate for office, he felt that it was his duty to serve 
his country when called upon, and even to subordinate his 
own opinions to those of men whom he regarded as his 
superiors in intellect and decision. But when these con- 
flicting theories were put to the hard test of practice the 
experiment failed, and Aberdeen's altruism and modera- 
tion were ruthlessly overborne in the stern battles of reality. 
An able, sincere and experienced man, he was a possible 
Prime Minister in times of peace; but in war his pacific 
temperament, his uncertain counsels and his hesitating 
decision spelt danger and might easily have spelt defeat. 



II.— DERBY 

The Hon. Edward Geoffrey Stanley, later styled Lord 
Stanley and subsequently fourteenth Earl of Derby, was 
born at Knowsley on the 29th of March, 1799, the eldest 
son of Edward, thirteenth earl, and of his cousin Charlotte 
Margaret, a daughter of the Reverend Geoffrey Hornby, 
rector of Winwick. The Stanleys, one of the oldest, richest 
and most distinguished families in England, had been 
settled in Lancashire since the fourteenth century. They 
had been strong Whigs, but their consideration was so great 
that even the Tory George III. respected them and wrote 
to Lord North : " The head of the Derby family is the proper 
person to fill the office of Lord-Lieutenant of the county of 
Lancaster, "t 

The thirteenth earl, a staunch but inconspicuous Whig, 
* Gibbs, i. 18, 19, note. t North, ii. 13. 



276 DERBY 

did not succeed his father until late in life. He was an 
ardent zoologist and ornithologist, and possessed the largest 
menagerie and aviary ever formed by a private collector. 
These and his enormous expenditure were his principal 
claims to fame. 

His son, Edward Stanley, was educated at Eton and at 
Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained the Chancellor's 
Latin Verse prize. Although he did not take honours, 
he showed remarkable classical talents and a facile elegance 
in English composition. Even at the University he was 
a brilliant speaker, and, it is said, used to benefit by the 
teaching of his grandfather's second wife, who had been Miss 
Farren, the celebrated actress. 

In 1820, the year that George IV. came to the throne, 
Stanley was elected member of Parliament for the close 
borough of Stockbridge a few weeks before his twenty-first 
birthday, but for some years he took no part in politics. 
In 1824 he travelled extensively in Canada and America, 
and on his return to England he married Emma Caroline, 
daughter of Mr. Edward Wilbraham, afterwards Lord 
Skelmersdale. As a Whig he was in favour of parliamentary 
reform, and in 1826 he changed his nomination, seat for 
that of Preston, where there was a popular franchise. Soon 
afterwards with some other Whigs he accepted office in 
CanAing's government and became Under-Secretary for 
the Colonies. He kept this position under Lord Goderich, 
but refused to serve under the Duke of Wellington. For 
two years he then voted with the Opposition, and when in 
1830 Lord Grey formed his Whig ministry, the first there 
had been for twenty-three years, Stanley was appointed 
Chief Secretary for Ireland and sworn a privy councillor. 
At his bye-election he was defeated, but he soon foimd 
another seat at Windsor. His Irish administration was 
drastic but not unsuccessful, for he knew his own mind 
and stuck to his policy. 'Council, then the most powerful 
man in Ireland, quarrelled with him almost at once, but 
Stanley never hesitated to fight his opponents and to carry 
through measures with which he was well acquainted. The 
Irish Board of Works, the Irish Education Act, the Tithe 
Act, and the Church Temporalities Act, were all due to his 



LEAVES THE WHIGS 277 

initiative. On the Keform Bill his attitude was at first less 
definite. He was quite ready to promote an agreement on 
its details, and nearly obtained some concessions from the 
Tories. In debate, however, he was an active and slashing 
advocate of the bill, and was largely responsible for its 
passage through the House of Commons, It is doubtful, 
however, whether he really much cared for it or understood 
the full meaning of the change. But his abilities and his 
name ensured reward, and in 1833 he was advanced to the 
Colonial Secretaryship in the place of Goderich, who was 
moved out of the way with some difiiculty. Here he intro- 
duced a moderate measure for the gradual abolition of the 
slave trade, handling it with much sagacity. 

In May 1834 Lord John Kussell, in a speech on Irish 
tithes, declared in favour of some State appropriation of 
Church property. The question was one on which the 
Cabinet was divided, Stanley himself being against seques- 
tration, and it was on this occasion that he made his 
remark about "Johnny and the coach/'* The Cabinet 
determined to come to a compromise on the subject, and 
Stanley accordingly left them and severed his connection 
with the Whigs. He was a serious loss, for he was their ablest 
debater and one of their best men of business. Russell 
afterwards called this the most memorable period of 
Stanley's career, and said that his skill, readiness and 
ability would probably soon have qualified him for the lead 
in the House of Commons. 

In this year, by the death of his grandfather, he succeeded 
to the courtesy title of Lord Stanley. On leaving the 
government he had a small folio whig, but though at first 
he gave some support to his late colleagues, he frequently 
spoke bitterly against them. In December 1834 when 
Peel formed his short ministry, Stanley thought it best to 
decline ofiice, but in July 1835 he formally joined the 
Conservatives, and during Melbourne's second administra- 
tion he was a vigorous and active opponent of the Whig 
government. His debating powers were now at their 
highest level. " Clever, keen, neat, clear," Macaulay said 
of him later on.f 

* Jennings, 278. f Macaulay, " Letters," ii. 435. 



278 DEEBY 

On Peel's coming in, in 1841, Stanley again became 
Colonial Secretary. He was in theory something of a Free 
Trader, but he would not go to the lengths that Peel in- 
tended, and gradually differences arose between them. To 
obviate this awkward position in the House of Commons 
Stanley was called up to the House of Lords in one of his 
father's baronies. But the dissensions grew, and on Peel's 
declaration for a total repeal of the Corn Laws in the autumn 
of 1845, Stanley gave up his place. Peel himself then 
resigned, and after Eussell had failed to form a ministry the 
task was offered to Stanley. He declined, however, to 
attempt it, for he said that if he were to take office he 
would have no colleagues. To Protection as an economic 
system he was by no means indissolubly wedded, but 
" Protection was, in his opinion, necessary for the main- 
tenance of the landed interest and the colonial system, the 
two pillars on which he conceived the British Empire to 
rest."* This he declared in the House of Lords in May 
1846, in a speech which is perhaps the best he ever made. 
With Bentinck and Disraeli he now formed the Protectionist 
party, though it is doubtful whether he was really in full 
sjrmpathy with them. 

In the summer of 1846 Peel was defeated and Eussell 
succeeded him. During the next five years Stanley spoke 
and acted with constant eloquence and effect against the 
government, and on its temporary resignation in February 
1851 he was twice sent for by Queen Victoria but was unable 
or unwilling to form a ministry. In his own view this was 
mainly due to the want of courage shown by his supporters. 
In the following Jmie his father died and he succeeded to the 
earldom, and in the same year he was elected Chancellor 
of Oxford University in place of the late Duke of Wellington. 

Early in 1852 Lord John Eussell was defeated on a snap 
division. The Queen again sent for Lord Derby, and on 
this occasion he was successful in making up a government; 
but it was untried, unknown, and had a majority against 
it in the House of Commons. Accordingly, on his advice, 
Parliament was dissolved in July, and after a general 
election the Conservatives found themselves in a small 
* Nat. Biog., liv. 57. 




H. P. Briggs inn 



H. Cousins sc. 



edward stanley 
14th EAEL of DEEBY 



To face page 27S 



PRIME MINISTER 279 

minority, the Peelites holding the balance. Derby vainly 
endeavoured to induce Palmerston to join him. Shortly 
afterwards he was defeated on his budget and in December 
he resigned, and was replaced by Lord Aberdeen. 

The Protectionist policy, of which Derby himself was 
only a lukewarm supporter, had not helped the Conserva- 
tives and they were now for some time seriously divided. 
The Crimean War Derby strongly opposed, but once the 
country was definitely embarked on it he promised the 
ministry his general support, though much of its work 
compelled his criticism. On Aberdeen's resigning in 
1855, Derby, as leader of the Opposition, was asked to 
succeed him, but he was again unable to enlist the 
help of either the Peelites or Palmerston, and would not 
take office alone. Palmerston accordingly became Prime 
Minister. This gran rifluio undoubtedly damaged Derby's 
reputation for pohtical courage, and though his decision 
was probably right from the point of view of the country, 
neither his name, his eloquence nor his character ever 
quite redeemed him in public opinion. 

" Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos 
Fecerit arbitria, 
Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te 
Restituet pietas." 

For the next few years he followed the ordinary tactics of 
opposition, impugning the government's principal measures 
and occasionally dividing against them. But his health 
was not good, his party was insubordinate and he was glad 
of the excuse of his literary, racing and other occupations to 
keep as much away from Parliament as he decently could. 
In the House of Commons Disraeli did all the heavy work. 

In February 1858 Palmerston resigned on the minor 
question of the Conspiracy Bill, and Derby then formed a 
purely Conservative administration. He saw that there was 
little chance of its enduring, but he thought it worth while 
to give his supporters the experience of office and to accus- 
tom the public to them. In foreign policy he was fairly 
successful, but on a franchise bill which he had felt obliged 
to introduce in 1859 he was defeated, and accordingly 

19 



280 DERBY 

lie again advised a dissolution of Parliament. The elec- 
tions went badly, and in June a want of confidence motion 
was carried against him. He then resigned and was 
again replaced by Palmerston. On leaving office on this 
occasion he was created a Knight of the Garter. 

Derby's position was now difficult. He had not a large 
enough party to conduct the government, and he could not 
induce the Peelites to join him. Yet he was anxious that 
a more or less stable ministry should carry on the business 
of the country. Accordingly he came to a sort of under- 
standing with Palmerston to legislate on moderate lines, 
while in exchange, as he said, his own party " kept the 
cripples on their legs."* For some years, therefore, Derby 
left the government more or less alone, the principal work 
of the Opposition being done by his lieutenant, Disraeli; 
but occasionally, as for instance when there was a desire 
to intervene in the German-Danish War in 1864, he exer- 
cised his powerful influence for peace. 

It was during this period of comparative inactivity in 
politics that he first attained celebrity as a writer. In 
1862 he had privately printed some translations of poems 
from Greek, Latin, French, German and Italian. They 
were received with considerable approval, and this en- 
couraged him to proceed with his rendering of the Iliad 
into blank verse. This work, of unquestioned merit, was 
published in 1864 and rapidly went through six editions; 
it is still regarded as one of the best English versions of 
Homer. During the Lancashire cotton famine of 1862, 
Lord Derby acted as chairman of the Belief committee 
and to his energy, generosity and business knowledge 
was due much of its success. 

In October 1865 Lord Palmerston died, and on Russell's 
resignation eight months later Derby became Prime Minis- 
ter for the third time. But he was old, he was suffering 
from gout, and Disraeli was the real moving spirit of the 
party. Derby, however, paid great attention to the pre- 
paration of the Household Suffrage Reform Bill in 1867. 
He called it " a leap in the dark," though it " dished the 
* Nat. Biog., liv. 59. 



HIS CHARACTER 281 

Whigs."* In January 1868 he became seriously ill, 
and next month he resigned and was succeeded by Disraeli. 
In the autumn of 1869 he died at Knowsley aged seventy. 

He left three children, and both his sons, as well as his 
grandson, the present earl, became Cabinet ministers. It 
is understood that he had been offered a dukedom, which he 
declined, and that his eldest son could have had the crown 
of Greece had he wished for it. He preferred to remain an 
English peer. 

Lord Derby was a handsome man, with aquiline features 
and a vivacious and agreeable expression. His manners 
were pleasant and even familiar, though in reality he held 
aloof from all but his intimates. When young his temper 
was frank and cheerful, but in later life it was much less 
genial. Melbourne in 1839 called him a man of great abili- 
ties, but of much indiscretion and extremely unpopular. 
More than twenty years later Disraeli, writing to Lady 
Londonderry, says : "As to our chief, we never see him. His 
house is closed, he subscribes to nothing, though his fortune 
is very large, and expects, nevertheless, everything to be 
done."t But there was never much sympathy between 
the two colleagues. Derby regarded Disraeli as an adven- 
turer and disliked his visits to Knowsley, " as it bored him 
to give up translating Homer in order to talk politics. "J 

As a speaker Derby had remarkable qualities — a fine 
tenor voice, an animated delivery and a luminous and 
impressive style. Before speaking he was nervous, but 
once he had begun he was absolutely composed and cool. 
Macaulay said that his knowledge of the science of parlia- 
mentary defence resembled an instinct. His dashing and 
rapid attack in invective and argument are celebrated in 
Lytton's " New Timon " : 

" The brilliant chief, irregularly great, 
Frank, haughty, rash, the Kupert of debate. 
Nor gout, nor toil his freshness can destroy. 
And time still leaves all Eton in the boy. 
First in the class and keenest in the ring, 
He saps like Gladstone and he fights like Spring."§ 

* Jennings, 314. f Buckle, iii. 547. 

J Buckle, iii. 528. § Jennings, 310. 



282 DERBY 

He was a religious man and a keen and accomplished 
scholar. His latinity was easy and his English prose and 
poetry admirable, " the pure Saxon of that silver style."* 
He had also a good knowledge of the French and German 
languages and took a real interest in education and 
literature. He was equally devoted to country sports and 
to the turf, and, though he never succeeded in winning any 
of the principal classic races, he had a famous stable and 
made nearly £100,000 in stakes alone during the twenty- 
two years that he kept it up. 

As a business man and a large landowner in Lancashire, 
he was full of common sense, and his work for his own 
county and for the nation during the Cotton Famine was 
never forgotten. 

Lord Derby was thus a man of many interests, of which 
politics was only one. His ideas of statesmanship were 
neither profound nor particularly constant, and he had 
few broad constructive views. This absence of any fixed 
political beliefs explains the many political changes which 
he made during his life, for he was in turn a Whig, a 
Canningite, a follower of Grey and of Peel, a Protectionist 
and a moderate Conservative. These tergiversations un- 
doubtedly weakened his influence in the country and modi- 
fied his own character, so that he was the less inclined to 
assume office. Yet he was three times Prime Minister, 
more than anyone had ever then been, though it is true 
that his tenure of the office only amounted to some four 
years in all. In his earlier days he was a man of great 
vitality and combativeness, though not of deep thought or 
inspiration, taking the business of State rather as he took 
his other occupations, and usually ready to go into the 
front of the battle. To him the manner of getting a thing 
often meant more than the thing itself, and the fight more 
than the victory. In old age he was content to fill a passive 
role if reasonable peace and progress were ensured. 

As the hereditary chief of the house of Stanley, Derby 
commanded a high place in the State. His attainments 
and his eloquence confirmed and enhanced his position. 

* Jennings, 310. 



NEW PARTIES 283 

His ancestors had been credited with a special flair for 
forecasting public opinion and for finding themselves on 
the winning side. These gifts he can hardly have inherited, 
for he seldom profited by his altered views : his ministries 
were more often defeated than victorious and politics 
were rather a burden to him than a blessing. A later 
counterpart of the eighteenth-century dukes, he regarded 
the claims of public duty as pre-eminent, though distaste- 
ful, and he shone more as a partisan and a subordinate 
than as a tactician or a chief. He left a name, brilliant 
indeed and distinguished, but more memorable for integrity 
and patriotism than for sagacity or success. 



With the disappearance of Aberdeen and Derby from the 
political stage, the day of third parties seemed for the 
moment to be done. Patriots and King's friends, seceders 
and Canningites, Peelites and Protectionists, had all 
successively played their parts and made their exit, and 
it looked as if only the historic characters were in future 
to fill the scene. But the pause was short. Within a few 
years new protagonists were to arise, first the Irish and later 
on the champions of Labour, representatives, perhaps, 
of race and class, but none the less destined materially 
to modify the long enduring battle of principle between 
the Tory and the Whig. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE CONSEEVATIVES 

DISRAELI AND SALISBURY 

In the year 1868 tlie Mid- Victorian era had attained its 
zenith, or, as some might say, its nadir. The aged chiefs 
of the Whig and Tory parties, scions of the houses of 
Russell and Stanley, had just retired from politics and two 
new men, middle-class representatives of intellect and 
commerce, had assumed their places. The political career 
was at last open to the talents. But rank, birth and social 
qualifications were not as yet to lose all their value. In 
the next half-century each party was to revert to earlier 
traditions and to choose as their leader a peer, though he 
had now to be of very exceptional eminence. 

The Conservatives, as they had come to be called, had 
shed the heresy of Protection and their creed had crystal- 
lized into a blend of the policies of Pitt, Canning and Peel. 
They had adopted some ideas of moderate reform and in 
parts of their programme were hardly to be distinguished 
from their opponents. But in one particular they adhered 
to the old dogmas of the eighteenth century, they relied 
on and utilized to the full the support of the Crown. It 
stood them in good stead. While strictly maintaining 
an attitude constitutionally correct towards all her 
ministers. Queen Victoria was latterly more ready to oblige 
her Conservative than her Liberal advisers, and this shade 
of preference indirectly increased their influence. The 
House of Lords was gradually moving over to their side 
and was soon to become a definite adjunct to their party. 
With these aids they were able for a generation successfully 
to withstand the advancing inroads of democracy. Im- 

284 



EARLY LIFE 285 

perialism was their principal weapon and commercial 
progress their soundest rampart, and through the next 
thirty years, peaceable and prosperous, they were ade- 
quately armed. Later on, when more serious troubles 
began to appear, they had to devise different schemes of 
defence and to look about for more modern methods of 
attack. 

I.— DISRAELI 

Benjamin Disraeli was born at 22, Theobald's Road, 
London, on the 21st of December, 1804, the eldest son of 
Isaac Disraeli and Maria, the daughter of George Basevi, 
an architect. Both his parents were middle-class Italian 
Jews, whose families had settled in England in the course 
of the eighteenth century. They were respectable people 
of no special note. The elder Disraeli had inherited a 
competence from his father, who had been engaged in 
business. He had devoted himself to writing, and the 
" Curiosities of Literature,'" the " Life of Charles I." and 
other works came from his pen. A student of Voltaire and 
of Rousseau, a friend of Byron, Scott, Southey and 
Rogers, he had travelled abroad and imbibed modern ideas. 
Being but a casual observer of his hereditary religion, he 
seceded in 1817 from the synagogue and his children were 
shortly afterwards received into the Church of England. 

Benjamin Disraeli was educated at private schools, at 
Islington, Blackheath and Epping, where he acquired a 
limited quantum of the classics, and then, at the age of 
seventeen, was articled to a firm of solicitors in Old Jewry. 
He remained with them for three years, attending moder- 
ately well to his business, but eagerly pursuing his studies 
and moving a little in literary society. In 1824 he went 
with his father for a short trip through the Netherlands 
and along the Rhine, and here he had his first insight into 
the glamour of romance. " I determined,'' he wrote years 
afterwards, " when descending those magical waters, that 
I would not be a lawyer."* 

To give scope to the ambition which thus early inspired 
* Buckle, i. 53. 



286 DISRAELI 

him Disraeli needed money. The quickest road to obtain 
it was, he thought, speculation. Accordingly he embarked 
in partnership with a fellow-clerk named Evans and 
engaged in various stock exchange transactions, by which 
in six months he lost as many thousand pounds — a debt 
which he took many years to liquidate. 

In the course of this venture he had written some 
pamphlets on American mining companies, and John 
Murray, the publisher, who was a friend of his father's, 
noticed his ability. Under his auspices a newspaper was 
projected of which Disraeli was to be one of the leading 
spirits, but before its publication his financial difficulties 
compelled him to retire from it. His literary ambition and 
want of funds combined, however, to make him write a 
novel, and before he was twenty he had completed " Vivian 
Grey.'' For this he received £200 from Messrs. Colburn, 
who advertised it well, and it appeared with striking success 
in 1826. 

In the following year Disraeli was ailing, so he went off 
with some friends for another journey to Switzerland and 
Italy. Here he again revelled in the scenes which he was 
afterwards to portray. Layard, who met him on his way 
home, wrote later: " I still retain a vivid recollection of 
his appearance, his black curly hair, his affected manner, 
and his somewhat fantastic dress."''' 

For nearly three years Disraeli's health continued very 
uncertain, and he was despondent and depressed about his 
future. He published " Popanilla," but did little else, 
though he continued his reading with assiduity. His 
family moved, in 1829, to Bradenham in Buckinghamshire, 
and there he wrote " The Young Duke." For this Colburn 
gave him £500, and when published it became as popular 
as his previous venture. With the money he received 
Disraeli started off for an extended tour in the East, visiting 
Spain, Albania, Greece, Palestine and Egypt. By this time 
he had become a rather celebrated character in romantic 
and minor political circles. His clever conversation, his 
social vagaries and his curious dress enhanced his reputa- 
* Buckle, i. 111. 



AS A NOVELIST 287 

tion. At a dinner at Lytton Bulwer's in 1830 lie wore 
" green velvet trousers, a canary-coloured waistcoat, low 
shoes, silver buckles, lace at his wrists and his hair in 
ringlets/' " We were none of us fools,'' says one of his 
contemporaries, " and each man talked his best; but we all 
agreed that the cleverest fellow in the party was the young 
Jew in the green velvet trousers/'* The Orient provided 
him with plenty of subject-matter for further novels, and 
'" Contarini Fleming " and " Alroy " were the result. 

By 1832 he was back in England, restored in health and 
certain of a regular income from his pen. He now turned 
his attention to politics. " Poetry," he said, " is the safety 
valve of my passions, but I wish to act what I write."! 
The town of High Wycombe lay near his home. He 
determined to contest it. The Reform Bill struggle was 
at its height. " I start on the high radical interest," he 
wrote. ... " Toryism is worn out and I cannot con- 
descend to be a Whig."t His canvass, however, was not 
successful, and he found himself at the bottom of the poll. 
A few months later he made another attempt, this time 
as an independent, but he met with the same result. He 
returned to London and plunged afresh into society, where 
he was received with open arms. " My table," he writes to 
his sister in June 1833, " is literally covered with in- 
vitations, and some from people I do not know."§ He was 
now a light in the world of literature and fashion, but his 
determination to succeed in politics was unabated. In 
1834 he met Lord Melbourne, who asked him what he 
wanted to be. " I want to be Prime Minister," he replied. 
Melbourne gave a very long sigh, and then said very 
seriously: " No chance of that in our time. It is all ar- 
ranged and settled. Lord Grey . . . will certainly be 
succeeded by one who has every requisite for the position, 
in the prime of life and fame, of old blood, high rank, 
great fortune and greater ability. . . . Nobody can 
compete with Stanley." Years afterwards, on hearing 
of Disraeli's promotion to the leadership of the Tory 

* Buckle, i. 125 and Enc. Brit. f l^i^-, i- 201. 

% Ibid., i. 211. § Ibid., i. 233. 



288 DISRAELI 

party, the old Premier exclaimed: "By God, the fellow- 
will do it yet."* 

In 1835 Disraeli again fought the Wycombe seat and 
was again beaten. He now threw in his lot with the Tories, 
towards whom he had gradually been moving, and greatly 
increased his value in their eyes by writing his political 
" Letters of Runnymede.'' He also published two more 
novels, " Henrietta Temple " and " Venetia," and fought 
another election at Taunton. 

At last in July 1837 he succeeded in winning a seat 
and was returned as one of the representatives for Maid- 
stone, being then thirty-two years old. His first speech in 
Parliament was not a success, for his pugnacity as a new 
member aroused opposition, and he had to submit to 
continual interruptions. But he held on until his voice 
was drowned by the clamour, and then finished with the 
memorable words: "I have begun several things many 
times, and I have often succeeded at the last, though many 
have predicted that I must fail as they have done before me. 
I sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear 
me."t Peel cheered him loudly, a very rare tribute from 
him, and warmly welcomed him to the Conservative ranks. 

Active and industrious as he was, Disraeli's progress in 
politics was at first slow, and he was much hampered by his 
debts. But in 1838 Wyndham Lewis, his parliamentary 
colleague at Maidstone, suddenly died. He was a rich 
man with an attractive wife, Marianne, daughter of a 
Mr. John Evans, a naval lieutenant. Disraeli had been 
her friend, and he soon became her suitor, though she was 
twelve years older than he was. His courtship prospered, 
and in August 1839 he married her and moved to her house 
in Park Lane. Nevertheless, his financial afiairs remained 
much embarrassed, for he still owed over £20,000. But 
his marriage helped, his speaking improved and by 1840 
he had so made his way forward in the House of Commons 
that he was consulted by Peel and was summoned to a 
" shadow Cabinet " of the leading members of the Opposi- 
tion — the only attendant who had not served in a govern- 
* Torrens, i. 426. f Hansard, December 7, 1837. 



IN PARLIAMENT 289 

ment. In 1841 lie was elected member for Shrewsbury, and 
on Peel becoming Prime Minister, both Disraeli and his 
wife strongly urged his claims for office, but Peel was 
obdurate and Disraeli was not given a place. It is believed 
that at this time Stanley, who was in the Cabinet, was 
very hostile to him ; but the disappointment was intense. 

Disraeli, however, did not repine for long. He continued 
to speak in Parliament, to travel on the Continent, to go 
out into society and to increase his reputation for deter- 
mination and ability. He now formed with George Smythe, 
afterwards Lord Strangford, Lord John Manners and a 
few others, the party of " Young England " — followers of 
the principles of Pitt and Canning, who believed in the 
genius of a new Toryism, reconstructed on a popular basis 
and in strong opposition to the old Whig and modern 
Liberal doctrines. They severely heckled the ministers, 
who regarded them with deep disfavour. Graham, writing 
to Croker in 1843, says: " With respect to Young England 
the puppets are moved by Disraeli who is the ablest man 
among them. I consider him unprincipled and disap- 
pointed, and in despair he has tried the efiect of ' bullying.' "* 

In 1844 Disraeli published " Coningsby," the manifesto of 
his recent ideas. It had an instant and remarkable success. 
Three editions were sold in as many months, while 50,000 
copies had to be sent to America. It enormously increased 
his position, and about the same time the eloquence and 
sarcasm of his speeches became more damaging than ever 
to the government. Peel and Stanley he principally 
attacked. Of the latter's incautious tactics he once said: 
" The noble lord is the Prince Rupert of Parliamentary 
discussion; his charge is resistless; but when he returns from 
the pursuit he always finds his camp in the possession of the 
enemy, "t 

In 1845 " Coningsby " was followed by " Sybil," a tale 
which showed the popular side of Disraeli's new policy. 
Simultaneously he diverged still further from the govern- 
ment, and when Peel began definitely to expound his Free 
Trade proposals, the Protectionist cave came into being 
* Croker, iii. 9. f Jennings, 310. 



290 DISRAELI 

under Stanley, who had. left the Cabinet, Disraeli and Lord 
George Bentinck. 

In 1846 the Repeal of the Corn Laws was passed, but 
immediately afterwards the government was defeated on 
the Irish Coercion Bill, and Peel resigned. This was 
Disraeli's victory. " The boys," he had said in " Tancred," 
when speaking of the earlier Sir Robert, "beat him at 
last."* The words had come true again. 

At the beginning of 1847 Disraeli took his seat on the 
front Opposition bench, and from this time he may fairly 
be regarded as one of the principal men of his party. He 
now became member for his own county of Buckingham, 
and he also published " Tancred," which gave his views 
on Eastern politics and the Jewish question. On Russell's 
Jewish Relief Bill he voted for his race, and his friend 
Bentinck took the same side, in consequence of which 
the latter was compelled to retire from the leadership of the 
Protectionists, who thus remained for a time without a 
chief. " Nobody can think of a successor to Bentinck," 
says Greville; " and bad as he is he seems the best man 
they have. It seems they detest Disraeli, the only man of 
talent, and in fact they have nobody, "f This, indeed, was 
to some extent the reason of Disraeli's rapid advance; he 
had few competitors and none of his own calibre. Soon 
afterwards Bentinck died, and Disraeli remained the only 
man of commanding talent on his side in the Lower House. 

Early in 1849, after some opposition and hesitation on 
the part of Stanley, Disraeli was chosen as the leader of 
the Conservatives in the Commons. " I think," said 
Guizot, " your being leader of the Tory Party is the greatest 
triumph that Liberalism has ever achieved."^ It was, 
indeed, a remarkable achievement in English politics for a 
new man of alien origin and unsupported by wealth or 
connection. 

A year previously old Mr. Isaac Disraeli had died. 

His son now came into the possession of Hughenden Manor, 

near Beaconsfield, where henceforward he lived — its 

purchase had been largely due to the generosity of his loyal 

* Buckle, iii. 1. t Greville, vi. 114=. 



AT THE EXCHEQUER 291 

friends tlie Bentincks. He was already a J.P. and a D.L. 
for the county, and he now began his favourite career of a 
country squire, attending to county business and farmers' 
meetings and generally concerning himself with the im- 
provement of his small estate. But he did not remit his 
attention to politics, and in the next few years he made 
many careful and excellent speeches on finance and foreign 
afiairs — ^propounding on the latter question a definite 
programme of peace, the avoidance of meddling abroad and 
the discouragement of liberalism in Europe. Protection, 
however, was still the weight round his neck, and it was 
responsible for keeping his party out of permanent office 
for many years. 

In 1851 Lord John Russell resigned, but the Tories 
came to the conclusion that they could not form a ministry, 
and the Liberals accordingly resumed the seals of office. 
A year later, however, the government had lost Palmerston 
and were proportionately weaker. They were dej&nitely 
defeated, and Lord Derby, as Stanley had recently become, 
was able to complete an administration. After having 
approached Palmerston, for whom Disraeli had generously 
offered to make way, but who declined to join, Derby asked 
Disraeli to be his Chancellor of the Exchequer. Disraeli 
remarked that it was a branch of public business of which 
he had not any knowledge ; to this Derby made the typical 
reply : " You know as much as Mr. Canning did. They give 
you the figures."* Disraeli accepted, and at the same time 
became leader of the House of Commons— the first instance 
since the days of the younger Pitt of a direct ascent to that 
place of a man who had never held office. It was an almost 
inexperienced Cabinet — Derby's " team of young horses, "f 

Disraeli settled down quickly to his new work, and in 
his nightly letter to the Queen adopted a much more 
brilliant style than had hitherto been the custom. Her 
Majesty soon began to take a liking to him. She writes on 
May 1, 1852 : " The Queen has read with great interest the 
clear and able financial statement which the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer made in the House of Commons last night 
and was glad to hear from him that it was well received."! 

* Buckle, iii. 344. f Jennings, 312. % Buckle, iii. 364, 365. 



292 DISEAELI 

Disraeli with his usual flair did not neglect this opening, 
and began to lay the foundation of his later friendship 
with his Sovereign. The general election in the summer, 
however, did not improve the prospects of the government. 
Their attitude on Free Trade was equivocal and in Decem- 
ber they were defeated on Disraeli's first budget. Derby 
then resigned, and Lord Aberdeen became Prime Minister 
of the luckless Coalition. 

During the Crimean War Disraeli had not any special 
part to play, and he was never saddled with any of the 
difficulties that arose from it. He did his duty in opposi- 
tion and looked forward to a return to power. But when 
early in 1855 Aberdeen's Cabinet was compelled to resign, 
Derby refused to take office unless he was supported by 
Palmerston and Gladstone. He had no man, he said to the 
Queen, "capable of governing the House of Commons."* 
Thus, to the bitter disappointment of many of his friends, 
he let the chance slip through his fingers. Palmerston 
formed a government, and Disraeli, now over fifty years 
of age, found himself again relegated to the wrong side of 
the House. Indeed, for thirty-two out of his thirty-nine 
years in the Commons' House he was out of office, a record 
not surpassed by any Prime Minister. The Conservative 
party was now thoroughly discouraged, for Derby and 
Disraeli were not by any means agreed as to the policy 
to be pursued. Derby was ready to keep Palmerston in 
office, as he acted on more or less Tory lines, but Disraeli 
wished to attack him with a strong and militant party. 
The more active tactics were naturally the more popular. 

In 1857 the general election left the Whig government 
well established, while the conduct of the Indian Mutiny 
and the Chinese War had redounded to Palmerston's 
credit. But he had become careless and had alienated 
some of his supporters. Almost by an accident he was 
defeated early in 1858 on the Conspiracy Bill. He re- 
signed, and on this occasion Derby accepted the Queen's 
offer and formed an administration. Disraeli again went 
to the Exchequer and led in the House of Commons. 
At first he had some difficult times. There was a perma- 
* "Letters of Queen Victoria," iii. 102. 



PRIME MINISTER 293 

nent majority against him, and on the India Bill there were 
several dangerous divisions. But with much tact and 
temper he managed to steer through the session. Early 
in 1859 he introduced a Reform Bill — the bill of " fancy 
franchises." Too liberal for the Tories, and not liberal 
enough for the Radicals, it was largely opportunist in 
character and was easily defeated. Derby then dissolved 
Parliament and having a vote of want of confidence 
carried against him after the general election, he resigned in 
June and was replaced by Palmerston. Disraeli now 
again returned to the cold shades of opposition, while his 
party continued as before to accord a general support to the 
Whig government. But he had profited by his year in 
ofiice, his name was more established in the country, his 
statesmanship had developed and with the Queen he had 
become a favourite. 

In 1865 Palmerston died, and in the early summer of 
the next year his successor, Lord Russell, came to grief 
on a Reform Bill. For the third time Lord Derby became 
Prime Minister, with Disraeli as his lieutenant. Taking 
their cue to some extent from their predecessors, the 
government made the Household Suffrage Reform Bill 
their chief plank, and this they passed in August 1867 
largely owing to Disraeli's management and skill. It was 
a great personal triumph, and when in February 1868 
Derby was compelled to retire through ill-health Disraeli 
succeeded to his place. He had just passed his sixty - 
third birthday when he at last attained the object of his 
life. " Yes," he said, in reply to some congratulations, 
" I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole."* But his 
parliamentary position was for the moment insecure. He 
soon got into difficulties over the Irish Church and other 
measures, and in November he thought it best to dissolve 
Parliament. The Liberals came back with a considerable 
majority, and Disraeli resigned on December 1. He re- 
fused a peerage for himself, but his wife, at his request, 
was created Viscountess Beaconsfield. 

Gladstone succeeded as Prime Minister. Disraeli, whose 
health for some time had not been very good, now took the 
* Buckle, iv. 600. 



294 DISEAELI 

opportunity of getting some rest in the country and was 
again able to devote himself in part to literature. In 1870 
hepublished " Lothair," which had an enormous circulation. 
Two years later his wife died. She had been his constant 
friend, adviser and admirer, and her loss seriously affected 
him. For some months he was greatly depressed, but his 
friends, especially Lady Chesterfield and Lady Bradford, 
gathered round him, and he gradually accustomed himself 
to his new conditions. Politics had entered on a fresh 
phase, and these served to distract him. Early the next 
year Parliament was dissolved and the Conservatives won 
the elections. Gladstone resigned and Disraeli became 
Prime Minister for the second time on February 18, 1874. 

His political task was now comparatively easy, for he 
was immensely popular in the country and had a large 
majority behind him in the House of Commons. Un- 
fortunately his health had become a serious trouble, for he 
had suffered from several severe attacks of gout and his 
activity was much diminished. Accordingly he devoted 
himself chiefly to a general supervision of the government, 
varied with occasional personal strokes of policy such as 
the purchase of the Suez Canal shares and the Queen's 
title as Empress of India. He soon felt, however, that he 
must have still easier work, and in August 1876, at the 
Queen's suggestion, he went up to the House of Lords as 
Earl of Beaconsfield. 

The remainder of his life was mainly concerned with 
world politics, and more especially with the Eastern 
question. Roughly speaking, this meant the preservation 
of the interests of England in the Mediterranean, in Egypt 
and in India from the Russian advance in those directions. 
For all such affairs Beaconsfield by his knowledge, training 
and sympathies was peculiarly well fitted, and he entered 
on them con amore. The Bulgarian atrocities, the rout of 
Servia, the Constantinople conference and finally the Russo- 
Turkish War, rapidly succeeded each other. With con- 
siderable difficulty in the Cabinet, but with the Queen on 
his side, Beaconsfield enforced a firm policy against Russia; 
and by sending the British fleet up the Dardanelles he 




IV. Grant pivx 



BENJAMIN DISEAELI 

AFTERWARDS EARL OF BEACONSFIELD 



To face page 294 



AT BERLIN 295 

checked her designs upon Constantinople. This move, 
however, caused the resignation of the Foreign Secretary, 
Lord Derby, the son of the old Prime Minister. Hostilities 
eventually came to an end, and Beaconsfield and Salisbury, 
who had taken over the Foreign Office, went to the Congress 
of Berlin as plenipotentiaries for Great Britain. - This was 
the zenith of Beaconsfield's career. His diplomacy was 
as effective as his determination, and he vastly impressed 
the Germans. " Der alter Jude," said Bismarck, " das 
ist der Mann." Beaconsfield got Cyprus and nearly all 
he wanted for England and came home in a blaze of 
popularity, bringing " Peace with Honour." 

The Queen was full of admiration for his personality and 
his success, and insisted on giving the Garter to him and 
his colleague. She writes on July 17, 1878: " The Queen 
was much touched by Lord Beaconsfield's very kind letter. 
Would he not accept a marquisate or a dukedom in addition 
to the blue ribbon ? And will he not allow the Queen to 
settle a barony or viscounty on his brother and nephew ? 
Such a name should be perpetuated."* But Beaconsfield 
was wise, modest and content. 

The next two years were chiefly remarkable for the 
Afghan and Zulu Wars, which did not redound much to 
the reputation of the government. In 1880 the general 
election came round. Gladstone, who had nominally 
retired from politics, again took the field. He was able 
to accuse the ministry of having neglected domestic 
legislation and increased public expenditure. They were 
heavily defeated, and the Liberals returned to power with a 
majority of 160. On April 21 Beaconsfield finally resigned 
his office. 

He was old, ill and tired, but with dogged energy he 
reverted to his earliest pursuits and prepared his last 
novel, " Endymion," for publication. He received for 
it the prodigious sum of £10,000, the highest figure that 
had ever then been paid for such a production. It was the 
last flash in the pan. Early in March 1881 he became ill, 
suffering from gout and asthma, and on April 19 he died 

* Buckle, vi. 347. 

20 



296 DISRAELI 

at his house in Curzon Street. His sudden death occasioned 
a widespread and genuine public mourning, and " Prim- 
rose Day," recalling his favourite flower, is still kept in 
his honour. He left no issue and his title became extinct. 
He was buried at Hughenden and a statue at the public 
expense was erected to him in Westminster Abbey. 

In appearance Beaconsfield was a large and powerful 
man, with a high broad forehead, sunken lustreless eyes, 
black curly hair and a small tufted beard. His counten- 
ance, always mysterious and impressive, in old age was 
painted and had an almost ghastly look. In many ways he 
showed his Asiatic origin. His love for dress, for show and 
for dramatic effect was typically Jewish, though these 
traits were much less prominent as he grew older. He 
spoke with an even and almost monotonous voice, in low 
and searching tones, and rarely seemed animated even 
when launching his coolest and deadliest shafts of sarcasm, 
nor did he ever show any sign of appreciating his own wit. 

One of the leading elements in his character was his 
passion for romance and his belief in the destiny of his race, 
though both were curiously blended with an intense 
patriotism for England. Magnificent ideas appealed to 
him, and his policy seemed to move through an atmosphere 
of Elysian light or Stygian gloom. The Orient, with its 
colour, its riches and its mysteries, exercised a peculiar 
fascination on him, and he had all the Eastern reverence 
for creeds. " My conception," he said, " of a great states- 
man is of one who represents a great idea — an idea which 
may lead him to power — an idea with which he may iden- 
tify himself — an idea which he may develop — an idea which 
he may and can impress on the mind and conscience of a 
nation."* These ideas he used to embody in those cele- 
brated watchwords with which he so often rallied his party, 
for he had a marvellous dexterity in coining phrases: 
*' Imperium et Libertas " — " Peace with Honour " — 
" Sanitas Santitatum." The cardinal principles of his 
adopted country he thoroughly understood. Its three 
master influences, he said, were industry, liberty and 
* Hansard, " Speech on the Address," January 22, 1846. 



HIS SAYINGS 297 

religion, while " the Tory party, unless it is a national 
party, is nothing."* 

As a young man his wit was almost Satanic and his 
conversation like " the foam of the sea." He " talked 
like a racehorse approaching the winning-post"; "Tory 
men and Whig measures"; "Diplomatists the Hebrews 
of politics";! " Dranken recruits full of spirit." Of 
Gladstone's first administration he said: "Her Majesty's 
ministers . . . have lived in a blaze of apology," and " the 
country has made up its mind to close this career of plunder- 
ing and blundering." | When asked if he had seen Greville's 
memoirs, which had just been published, he answered: 
" No, I do not feel attracted to them. I knew the author, 
and he was the most conceited person with whom I have 
ever been brought in contact, although I have read Cicero 
and known Bulwer Lytton." Yet modesty was by no 
means one of his own virtues. Nearly everything he did 
he thoroughly admired, though he knew how to conceal 
his admiration. All through his life this confidence in his 
own star upheld him and inspired his immense energy and 
unbounded patience. " You and I," he said in old age 
to a young man of his former faith, " belong to a race which 
can do everything but fail."§ But with all his powers of the 
tongue and the pen, he had a singularly generous nature 
and rarely nourished rancour. His taciturn manner and 
apparent cynicism in later life were much more due to 
fatigue and ill-health than to lack of interest, kindliness 
or humour. 

His relations with women were peculiar. So much did 
he depend upon their sympathy and instinct that their 
society was a necessity to him, though on their intelligence 
he set no great store. His earliest friend was his sister, to 
whom he freely opened his heart. His wife he adored, 
though he said that she never could remember which came 
first, the Greeks or the Komans. After her death his 
platonic amours with Lady Chesterfield and Lady Bradford 
became a vital part of his existence. The former at the 

* Speech at Crystal Palace, June, 1872. t Sichel, 291. 

J Jennings, 334, 335. § Russell, " Collections," 241, 296. 



298 DISEAELI 

age of seventy refused his hand, while the latter received 
as many as 1,100 letters from him in the last eight years of 
his life. With Queen Victoria his success was unparalleled. 
" He used to engage Her Majesty in conversation about 
water-colour drawing and third cousinships of German 
princes. Mr. Gladstone harangues her about the policy of 
the Hittites or the harmony between the Athanasian creed 
and Homer/'* 

These arts Disraeli himself admitted. Late in life he 
once said to Matthew Arnold: " You have heard me called 
a flatterer, and it is true. Everyone likes flattery; and 
when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a 
trowel."t Another remark that he made to Lord Esher 
of speaking to the Queen was: "I never deny; I never 
contradict; I sometimes forget.'" f 

Of the advantages of rank he was fully conscious. The 
peerage and the baronetage were valuable assets for which 
he had a real respect, despite the apparent gibes in his 
novels. His first government contained at least half a 
dozen dukes, and to his last days a title still slipped off his 
pen or his tongue with thorough relish. 

But these minor traits of the visionary, the conjurer, 
the cynic or the snob, were but a small part of the man 
himself. Like Chatham, and perhaps like Canning, Disraeli 
was a genius, not only as a novelist, a politician and a 
statesman, but as one of the outstanding figures in history. 
By his own unaided power he had raised himself from 
nothing to everything, and his own generation with reason 
regarded him as something more than human and endued 
with an art akin to magic. His history was undoubtedly 
something unique — a wonder for all time. Sir William 
Harcourt, an old friend though a political opponent, wrote 
to him on his going up to the House of Lords : " To the 
imagination of the younger generation your life will always 
have a special fascination. For them you have enlarged 
the horizon of the possibilities of the future."! In moving 
an address to the Crown for a monument to Beaconsfield 

* Eussell " Collections," 191. f Buckle, vi. 463. 

$ Ihid., V. 498. 



HIS CAREER 299 

in Westminster Abbey, Gladstone, his lifelong opponent, 
said: " The career of Lord Beaconsfield is in many respects 
the most remarkable in parliamentary history. For my 
own part I know but one that can fairly be compared to 
it . . . and that is the career of Mr. Pitt.'' And he went 
on to recall " his extraordinary intellectual powers, his 
strength of will, his long-sighted persistency of purpose and 
his great parliamentary courage."* 

When Disraeli started his life all he had in his favour 
were his daring, his perseverance and his skill. By these 
and by these alone he attained to the summit of his high 
ambitions. Patient, intrepid and adroit, he fought through 
the petty obstacles of youth; he took the world by storm, 
first as a writer and then as a speaker; he overbore the 
covert envy of his friends and the open opposition of his 
enemies; he consolidated and enthralled an historic party; 
he evolved an imperial policy, and he rose to command the 
affections of his Sovereign and to direct the councils 
of his country. There he adorned the position that 
his merits had won, and thus closed a career at which 
mankind still marvels. 

II.— SALISBURY 

Lord Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, afterwards 
third Marquess of Salisbury, was born at Hatfield on the 
3rd February, 1830, the third son of James, the second 
marquess, and of Frances Mary, only daughter of Bamber 
Gascoyne of Childwell Hall, Lancashire, sometime M.P. 
for Liverpool. The Cecils had been settled in Wiltshire 
and Hertfordshire since the days of the Tudors, and their 
descendant claimed as his ancestor the Lord Burleigh who 
was chief minister to Queen Elizabeth, and the Lord Salis- 
bury who served King James I. in the same capacity. 

Robert Cecil's grandfather had been Lord Chamberlain to 

George III. for twenty years, and his father, a strong Tory, 

became Lord Privy Seal and Lord President in Lord 

Derby's governments of 1852 and 1858. Cecil himself was 

* Hansard, May 9, 1881. 



300 SALISBUKY 

thus born and bred in a pronounced Conservative atmo- 
sphere, wbicb was strengthened by his education and 
natural bent of mind. 

He was sent first to Eton at the age of ten, and then on 
to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1847. There he became 
secretary and treasurer of the Union Debating Society and 
took a fourth class in mathematical honours, though other- 
wise he did not specially distinguish himself. A few years 
after coming down, however, he was elected a Fellow of 
All Souls. 

In 1851 Cecil started for Australia and spent nearly two 
years visiting that colony, where the gold mines were then 
much to the fore. After his return, in 1853, he was elected 
member of Parliament for Stamford, and he shortly began 
to manifest a deep insight into certain phases of politics. 
His earliest speech, on the Oxford University Bill, was made 
in defence of property and of the letter of the law. Thus, 
religious education and foreign affairs remained his 
principal political interests through life. At first he took 
a rather dashing and unconventional line in debate, though 
in matters of moment he was serious and loyal. He helped 
to oppose Roebuck's motion against Lord Aberdeen during 
the disasters of the Crimean War, and took a busy part in 
the domestic reforms of 1856. 

In 1857 he married Georgina Caroline, daughter of Sir 
Edward Alderson, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, 
a lady of very remarkable character and talents. The 
marriage did not please his father, and for some time Cecil 
found himself by no means well off. But he was full of 
grit and knew his powers. He took up writing as a pro- 
fession, and during the next eight years he contributed a 
long series of important and able essays to the Quarterly 
and Saturday Reviews, the latter of which belonged to his 
brother-in-law, Beresf ord Hope, the member for Cambridge 
University. Cecil's pen materially augmented his reputa- 
tion. His successive articles on Poland, the Danish 
Duchies, Lord Castlereagh, and Foreign Policy, showed 
him to be a man of thought and knowledge, while his 
reasoned attacks on the Liberal government and his clear 



HIS INDEPENDENCE 301 

compreliension of the mission of Conservatism marked him 
out as a practical politician. The utilitarian standpoint of 
modern statesmanship, the abandonment of the old feudal 
basis, and the protection of property and its influence were, 
he claimed, a necessity. There should be no repining, the 
fait accompli must be recognized loyally and the party must 
go forward on new lines. His speeches at this time were 
perhaps less restrained than his vigorous written English, 
though this displayed hardly less pungency and sense. 

In 1865 Cecil's elder brother, who had long been blind, 
died, and Cecil then assumed the courtesy title of Lord 
Cranborne. His prospects were now much improved, for 
he became the heir to an historic name, house and fortune. 
In July of the next year, on Lord Derby's coming into 
office for the third time, he was offered the Indian Secretary- 
ship of State and joined the ministry at the age of thirty- 
five. In his department he had no special opportunities of 
distinction, though in the Cabinet he made his weight felt. 
But his ideas on popular government did not tally with 
those of Disraeli and he could not bring himself to accept 
the principles of the projected Reform Bill. Accordingly 
in March, 1867, he resigned his place, and from dislike 
of the new Conservative system he nearly retired from 
politics. A year later Disraeli became Prime Minister. 
Cecil had now succeeded his father, and began to take as 
important a position in the House of Lords as he had 
previously held in the Commons. There was, indeed, a 
movement among the Conservative peers to choose him 
as their leader in the Upper House, but to this Disraeli 
objected and Salisbury himself refused. On Lord Derby's 
death he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford, 
and he also became Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway, 
an office which he held for four years with singular success. 
His attitude in opposition was moderate. It was the duty 
of the House of Lords, he said, to give the country the 
opportunity of expressing its views, but, after that ex- 
pression, to abide by the result. In this spirit he facilitated 
the passing of Gladstone's Irish Disestablishment Bill, 
with which he personally disagreed. 



m SALISBURY 

In 1874 Disraeli returned to office, and Salisbury again 
accepted the post of Secretary for India. To many people 
this was a matter of astonishment, for he was believed still 
to disapprove of and to distrust his leader. But Disraeli 
had done his best to conciliate him, and Salisbury was 
sufficiently reasonable and patriotic to sacrifice his private 
views to what he thought was his public duty. Yet he did 
not on occasion hesitate to take exception to portions of 
Disraeli's policy. To one of his caustic speeches about the 
" bluster of the House of Commons " Disraeli retorted by 
calling him " a master of gibes and flouts and sneers "* — 
that being the particular form of invective in which 
Salisbury excelled. But gradually the two men began to 
realize each other's value and power, and to pull more 
easily together. Disraeli, writing to the Queen on 
November 12, 1874, says of a Cabinet meeting: "Lord 
Salisbury spoke with much moderation and said that he 
would be satisfied with a compromise . . . and that 
neither in this nor in any respect did he wish to urge his 
views against a majority of the cabinet. "f 

Salisbury's administrative work at the India Office had 
been brilliant, and his study of foreign politics had made 
him a high authority on Russian affairs and the Eastern 
question. For this reason he was sent in 1876 as High 
Commissioner to Constantinople, where he took a very 
independent line and disagreed with the Foreign Office 
view. The Porte did not accept his suggestions, but 
Salisbury much increased his own reputation. 

Early in 1878 Lord Derby, who for some time had 
disapproved of Beaconsfield's forward policy against 
Russia, resigned the Foreign Secretaryship, and Salisbury 
was put in his place. " He was," says Mr. Buckle, " to 
hold the seals of the Foreign Office for thirteen years in all, 
and to be the dominating influence in British foreign policy 
for the whole of the final period of the nineteenth century. "{ 

Disraeli, now Lord Beaconsfield, had come thoroughly 
to trust Salisbury, regarding him as a man of commanding 
ability, while Salisbury acquired favour with the Queen 
* Jennings, 421. j Buckle, vi. 279. } Ibid. 



LEADER OF HIS PARTY 303 

and took a firm hold of his new office. In June he accom- 
panied his chief as a plenipotentiary to the Congress of 
Berlin, and although Prince Bismarck was not, or said 
that he was not, impressed by Salisbury, whom he called 
" a lathe painted to look like iron," Salisbury's own country- 
men took a different view. His knowledge and diplomacy 
were of the highest level, and on his return he received the 
Garter and a very considerable accession of respect and 
popularity. He had done all the spade-work at the Con- 
ference with what Beaconsfield called " a consummate 
mastery of detail."* He now continued his work at the 
Foreign Office and in the House of Lords with the same 
acumen and tenacity. He knew exactly what he wanted. 

" In ouj foreign policy," he remarked, " what we have 
to do is simply to perform our own part with honour; to 
abstain from a meddling diplomacy; to uphold England's 
honour steadily and fearlessly, and always to be rather 
prone to let action go along with words than to let it lag 
behind them."t 

In 1880 the Liberals came into office, and Beaconsfield 
dying a year later, Salisbury was elected leader of the 
Conservative party in the Lords, while Northcote was 
chosen to hold the same position in the Commons. During 
the long period of dual control from 1881 to 1885 Salisbury 
was less prominent. His powers were still not fully under- 
stood, while his later sagacity and moderation had yet 
to develop. Some of his speeches were still somewhat 
indiscreet and he was little known to the majority of his 
party. But he gradually became a real leader and a sound 
statesman. He learned when to oppose and when to com- 
promise. The Irish Bills of the Liberal government he 
fought fiercely, but on the Household Suffrage Act of 1884 
he agreed to confer with the ministers, and eventually 
made the best bargain he could on that much disputed 
measure. 

In June 1885 the Liberals were defeated. Gladstone 
resigned, and Salisbury was sent for by the Queen. He 
was reluctant to take office, for he did not wish to deprive 
* Buckle, vi. 332. f ^at. Biog., 2 Supp., i. 334. 



304 SALISBURY 

Northcote of the post of Prime Minister. At last, however, 
lie agreed to accept the position, determining to retain 
the office of Foreign Secretary, while Northcote went to the 
Upper House as First Lord of the Treasury and Sir Michael 
Hicks-Beach led in the Commons. 

In the next six months Salisbury's firm and acute policy 
was able to settle the difficult question of the Afghan 
frontier, for which he subsequently won Mr. Gladstone's 
approbation. But when as a consequence of the recent 
Reform Bill Parliament was dissolved in December 1885 
the Liberals and Irish came back into power. Salisbury 
resigned in January 1886, and Gladstone resumed office. 
The first Irish Home Rule Bill was introduced. Lord 
Hartington had not joined and Mr. Chamberlain now 
left the ministry and the bill was thrown out in June. 
After a second general election the position of the 
Conservatives was improved, and Gladstone in turn 
resigned. Salisbury then offered to relinquish the lead of 
the government to Hartington, but this the latter declined, 
and Salisbury was again appointed Prime Minister. North- 
cote, now Earl of Iddesleigh, went to the Foreign Office, 
and Lord Randolph Churchill became Chancellor of the 
Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. A few 
months later Churchill, disapproving of the Cabinet's 
policy, gave up his office and was succeeded by Mr. Goschen. 
A fresh shuffle of places was then made, and Salisbury 
resumed the Foreign Office. 

During the ensuing six years the government pursued a 
broad but cautious imperial policy. The colonies in 
British East and South Africa, Uganda and Borneo were 
acquired — ^perhaps some of Salisbury's most lasting work. 
An understanding with Germany was attempted, and to 
forward it the island of Heligoland was exchanged for 
Zanzibar. In home affairs county councils were estab- 
lished in England, and a bill was passed for the purpose of 
giving free education to children. British commerce made 
exceptional progress all over the world, and this period was 
perhaps the most prosperous in the nineteenth century. 
A general election, however, was too long deferred, and 




/. E. Mitlais pinx. 



T. 0. Barlow sc. 



ROBERT GASCOYNE-CECIL 

3rd marquess of SALISBURY 



To face -page 304 



PRIME MINISTER 305 

when it came in 1892 the Liberals and Irish were returned 
to office, though only with the narrow majority of forty. 

A Home Rule Bill was now again introduced. It 
succeeded in passing the House of Commons in 1893, but 
Salisbury advised the peers to reject it, and it was accord- 
ingly thrown out by 419 to 41. 

Soon afterwards Gladstone retired from the premiership, 
and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery. A year later, in 
June 1895, the Liberal government was defeated on a 
minor motion, and Salisbury came into office for the third 
and last time. He now formed a coalition with the Liberal 
Unionists, who were led by Hartington, now Duke of 
Devonshire, and Chamberlain. Salisbury himself again 
took the place of Foreign Secretary, v/hile his nephew, Mr. 
Arthur Balfour, became first Lord of the Treasury and 
leader of the House of Commons. 

Another seven years of important but unobtrusive legis- 
lation followed, though the government was principally 
distinguished by the pacific victories of its foreign policy. 
Four separate crises, each of which nearly led to war, were 
successfully eluded — Venezuela, with the United States, 
and South Africa, with Germany, in 1896; Port Arthur, with 
Russia, and Fashoda, with France, in 1897. In the Near 
East the Concert of Europe was inaugurated to prevent 
as far as was possible the misgovernment of the Christians 
in the Ottoman Empire. All these victories, Pyrrhic 
perhaps, but none the less valuable, were directly due to 
the diplomacy of the Prime Minister. 

In 1899 the South African War broke out. Other 
counsels might have perhaps avoided the contest — as yet 
it is too soon to know — but once the struggle was inevitable 
Salisbury pursued a slow but sure policy which eventually 
resulted in success. He was becoming an old man and his 
health had begun to fail, but he determined to stick to his 
post until the war was finished. In 1900 he exchanged the 
place of Foreign Secretary for that of Lord Privy Seal 
and materially lightened his work. In May 1902 peace 
was signed, and in August of that year he retired from 
office, being succeeded by Mr. Balfour. Twelve months 



306 SALISBURY 

later he died in his seventy-third year. He was buried 
at Hatfield, a statue being erected to him in West- 
minster Abbey. He left a considerable family and 
several of his sons have become distinguished men. The 
present peer, who has held high office in the Cabinet, is the 
eldest. 

Salisbury was a big, heavy man with a large head, a 
broad brow and a thick beard. In mind as in body he was 
a massive personality, thoughtful, sound, deeply religious, 
a constant churchman. He had read widely — science, 
history, theology and some English poetry. In chemistry 
he was an ardent experimenter, though it is doubtful 
whether he had any talent for original research. His work, 
however, in this direction was at any rate practical, for 
in his own engineering shop he devised the electric lighting 
of Hatfield. There, at his house in Arlington Street and 
at his villa on the French Riviera, he spent most of his time, 
for although he had been made Lord Warden of the Cinque 
Ports in 1896, he lived little at Walmer and he did not much 
care for visiting his friends. In his own home he was an 
affectionate husband and father and an ideal host. Society 
bored him, and in it he seemed less genial and more aloof. 
A man of extreme reserve, intolerant of shams, though 
singularly acute and alert in matters of moment, he was 
very little known by his contemporaries. He was often 
thought an enigma and a dreamer, his preoccupation was 
remarkable, and he was careless of his appearance. " His 
dress,"' says his daughter, " was never his strong point.''* 
He had a very limited recollection of names or faces, though 
his deafness and short sight in later life were often really 
responsible for his lapses. On one occasion he is said to 
have been walking along Downing Street with a colleague, 
when a passer-by saluted him by taking off his hat. " Who 
is that man ?" he asked. " That," said his friend — 
*' why, that is So-and-so; he has been in the Cabinet for 
the last two years." Another tale, doubtful, perhaps, but 
hen trovato, describes him looking through a long list of 
names of candidates for the post of British envoy at some 

* Cecil, i. 17. 



HIS CHAEACTER 307 

minor and distant court. When he came to the bottom 
of the list the last name struck a chord, and he said: 
*' Brown — Brown. A good old English name. Give it 
to Brown." 

As a young man he was a facile, vigorous and witty 
speaker, albeit with a rather unfortunate kind of sarcasm. 
The caustic comments and frequent indiscretions that he 
used to blurt out gave him a reputation for bitterness that 
was probably undeserved — " the ill-advised railing of a 
rash and rancorous tongue," Sir William Harcourt once 
called it. * It was a form of humour which became modified 
by age. Later on, though he never attempted high 
flights of oratory, he could deliver the most masterly and 
impressive speeches, and his plain, matter-of-fact words, 
full of simple and direct common sense, were extremely 
effective on his fellow-peers in the House of Lords. When 
the spirit moved him he could be an entertaining and even 
a brilliant talker. No one, says Mr. Russell, " can listen 
even casually to his conversation without appreciating the 
fine manner full both of dignity and courtesy ; the utter 
freedom from pomposity, formality and self-assertion, 
and the agreeable dash of genuine cynicism which modifies, 
though it does not mask, the flavour of his fun."t Lord 
Rosebery says that . . . "his eloquence showed pre- 
eminently the literary faculty " and that the brilliant pen 
he wielded may be reckoned with that of Canning and Lord 
Beaconsfield ... his despatch on the Treaty of San 
Stefano being " one of the historic State papers of the 
English language." " He was a public servant of the 
Elizabethan type, a fit representative of his great Eliza- 
bethan ancestor." J 

Temperamentally a student, if not a recluse, of high 
intellect and robust thought, he had a firm will, and after 
he had pondered a question in his own mind he rarely de- 
viated from the course he had chosen. When he fijst went 
to the Foreign Office he signalized the policy he intended 
to follow by a striking and comprehensive circular des- 

* Buckle, V. 327. f Eussell, " Collections," 202. 

± Kosebery, " Miscellanies," i. 266-274. 



308 SALISBUKY 

patch which was sent off the day after he had taken over 
the seals, and it has been suggested, with some degree of 
truth, that Beaconsfield went himself to Berlin in 1878 so 
as to be able to keep an eye, and if necessary a hand, on 
his too capable and independent colleague. The two 
statesmen became united in policy as time went on, and 
they were always loyal to each other, but their relations 
never developed into real friendship. 

Salisbury's tastes were simple, his mind of the broad 
English pattern. Character he preferred to cleverness, 
questions he weighed on their merits, impracticable ideas 
he despised ; and these traits really constituted his so-called 
cynicism. Politics he never considered an exact science, 
but he held that excessive democracy was inimical to 
individual freedom, and that public discontents could best 
be resisted by dogmatic religion, production and security. 
He had an especial reverence for the Queen, who recipro- 
cated it and called him a greater man than Disraeli, and a 
strong belief in the House of Lords, whose duty, he said, it 
was to represent the permanent as opposed to the passing 
feelings of the English nation.* Yet he regretted leaving 
the Commons. On Beaconsfield being raised to the peerage 
in 1876, Salisbury wrote to him: " In this case it is facilis 
ascensus. As one of the shades who is on the wrong side 
of the stream, I must honestly say that I think you will 
regret the irrevocable step when you have taken it.""|" 

As a Foreign Minister he believed in England's main- 
taining the balance of power in Europe, and at one time he 
was not averse to an alliance with Germany. In a letter 
of October 1879 describing an interview with Count 
Munster, then German Ambassador, he says: " I stated 
to him our view — that Austria's position in Europe was a 
matter in which we took deep interest, and considered 
essential; that if Russia attacked Germany and Austria, 
Germany might rely on our being on her side. I said: 
* I suppose the service you would want of us would be to 
influence France and Italy to observe neutrality.' "J 
Strong and pacific, a cautious but fearless diplomat, 
* Jennings, 423. f Buckle, vi. 114. % Buckle, vi. 491. 



HIS POLICY 309 

Salisbury was a firm upholder of the constitution and an 
advocate of a pacific imperialism that was not to be 
hurried; he was the originator of the Colonial conferences. 
" Political equality," he wrote, *' is not merely a folly — 
it is a chimaera. . . . Always wealth, in some countries 
birth, in all intellectual power and culture, mark out the 
men to whom, in a healthy state of feeling, a community 
looks to undertake its government/'* For nearly fourteen 
years he was Prime Minister, a period of time only exceeded 
by Walpole, Pitt and Liverpool. A wise, straightforward 
and effective patriot, his own view of Castlereagh does not 
describe him amiss himself: " A practical man of the 
highest order, who yet did not by that fact forfeit his title 
to be considered a man of genius, "f 

* CecH. i. 159 t Nat. Biog., 2 Supp., i. 342. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE LIBEKALS 

GLADSTONE AND CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 

MoDEEN Liberalism may be said to begin with the first 
government of Mr. Gladstone. Lord Russell to some extent 
had laid the foundations of the edifice on the plans drawn 
by Grey and Peel, but the superstructure was almost 
entirely reared in the last generation of the nineteenth 
century, and its principal architect was the prosperous and 
learned High Churchman who had been in earlier life such 
an inveterate Tory. The policy of his old age was perhaps 
disproportionately occupied with Ireland, but in the main 
the principles of peace, individual liberty, progressive 
reform and sound finance informed it all. These tradi- 
tions were transmitted to his immediate successors, who 
pursued them in a similar spirit and with hardly less real 
results. Of the more recent developments of popular 
democracy it is at present too soon to speak, but at a dis- 
tance of over fifty years few Liberals will be found, what- 
ever their particular denomination, who would demur to 
or dissent from the cardinal axioms which inspired their 
party in the middle days of Queen Victoria. That the 
three earliest exponents of Liberalism were Scots or of 
Scottish origin and were all men of distinction in letters 
should not detract from the shrewdness or the sense of their 
statesmanship. 

I.— GLADSTONE 

William Ewart Gladstone was born on the 29th of De- 
cember, 1809, at 62, Rodney Street, Liverpool, the fourth 
son of John (afterwards Sir John) Gladstone by his second 
wife, Anne, daughter of Andrew Robertson, of the family 

310 




/. E. Millais pinx. 7- 0. Barlow sc. 

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 



To/ace page 310 



EARLY LIFE 311 

of Struan, sometime Provost of Dingwall. His father was 
a Scotsman from Lanark, who had settled in Liverpool 
some twenty years previously and had become a wealthy 
corn merchant and shipowner. Originally a Whig and 
a Presbyterian, he became a Churchman and a strong 
supporter of Canning, was later elected member of Parlia- 
ment for Lancaster, and eventually was created a baronet 
in Lord John Russell's first administration. 

The Gladstones, who originally spelt their name with a 
final " s," were a solid Lowland family, religious, commer- 
cial and stable, who were thoroughly representative of 
successful middle-class energy in the early part of the nine- 
teenth century. They lived in a quiet, sober but com- 
fortable fashion at first in the town and subsequently on 
an estate they purchased in Scotland. William Gladstone 
was sent in 1821 to Eton, where he stayed for six years, 
rising to the sixth form. He was studious, keen, a promi- 
nent writer and speaker, and always remained a fervent 
and loyal admirer of his school, though he once described 
it as " a very good place for those who liked boating and 
Latin verse.''* One of his earliest recollections there was 
walking from the Christopher to the corner of Keate's 
Lane with Canning, on whose policy he afterwards modelled 
much of his own. He went on in 1828 to Christ Church, 
Oxford, and there devoted himself more earnestly to work. 
He became President of the Union, and in 1831 took a 
double first, as Peel had done nearly a quarter of a century 
before. He thus had a promising reputation, and after 
six months spent in travelling in France and Italy was 
elected, by the Duke of Newcastle's interest, as Conser- 
vative member for Newark when he was just twenty- 
three years of age. He was most diligent in his parlia- 
mentary duties, and, though he had spoken little. Peel 
thought his abilities so remarkable that on coming into 
office in December 1834 he made him a junior Lord of the 
Treasury and soon afterwards Under-Secretary for the 
Colonies. The ministry, however, only lasted a few months, 
and in 1835 Gladstone was back again in opposition. 

* Morley, " Gladstone," i. 47. 

21 



312 GLADSTONE 

He continued active in study, politics and serious 
society. He had always been deeply religious, and tlie 
Tractarian movement at Oxford now led him to publish his 
first book, " The State in its E elation with the Church," 
a work in support of established religion, which, though it 
did not gain him many converts, confirmed his claim to 
exceptional powers of thought and knowledge. In July 
1839 he married Catharine, daughter of Sir Stephen 
Glynne, eighth baronet of Hawarden, and cousin through 
her mother of the Pitts and Grenvilles. Two years later 
Lord Melbourne's ministry fell. Gladstone then became 
Vice-President of the Board of Trade under Peel, and was 
sworn a privy councillor. 

In this ofiice he showed extraordinary capacity for busi- 
ness and especially for figures, and he was almost entirely 
responsible for the tariff reduction bill of 1842. The insight 
he thus acquired into the details of commerce began to 
incline his mind towards Free Trade and to the modifica- 
tion of the Corn Laws — the coming policy of his leader. 

In May 1843 he was made President of the Board of 
Trade and then became a member of the Cabinet, when he 
was not yet thirty-four. His position grew rapidly, and he 
was soon regarded as Peel's principal lieutenant in the 
House of Commons. Early in 1845, however, he felt him- 
self obliged to resign on the question of an increased grant 
to Maynooth College, his strong feelings on Church matters 
and the position he had taken in his book compelling him 
to disagree with his chief. But in December, after Peel's 
resignation on the Repeal question and Russell's failure to 
form a government, Gladstone returned to the ministry 
as Secretary for the Colonies. On his appointment he 
vacated his seat at Newark and, feeling himself honestly 
debarred from standing there again, he remained out of 
Parliament for over a year, though a Cabinet minister. 

In July 1846 Peel was defeated and resigned. Glad- 
stone then made a short journey to Germany and resumed 
his old interests in the classics and the Church. At the 
general election of 1847 he was elected member for Oxford 
University, a seat which he held for eighteen years. About 



AT THE EXCHEQUER 313 

this time he became concerned in the affairs of his brother- 
in-law's estate of Hawarden, which was in financial 
difficulties. Mainly owing to Gladstone's labour and con- 
tributions of money, the property was eventually put upon 
a solvent basis, and nearly thirty years later he inherited 
it on Sir Stephen Glynne's dying without issue. The 
business was complicated and engrossing, and it occupied 
him continually for the next few years. For this reason 
and also because the Peelites, or Free Trade Conservatives, 
were now a very small party in the House of Commons, his 
political activity remained rather in abeyance until Peel's 
death in 1850. 

On the temporary resignation of Russell early in 1851, 
Lord Stanley, who was attempting to form an administra- 
tion, asked Gladstone to join him, but this the latter de- 
clined on Free Trade grounds. The Conservatives, however, 
came into office as a Protectionist government a year 
later, but the Peelites still adhered to their waiting policy. 
" They were always," it was said, " putting themselves up 
for auction and then buying themselves in."* At the 
general election in July 1852 they found themselves 
definitely in a position to control the balance, and it was 
about this time that Gladstone's particular hostility to 
Disraeli was first developed. A sound financier himself, 
he thoroughly disapproved of all Disraeli's budget pro- 
posals. In December a combination between the Liberals 
and Peelites defeated the government, and Lord Aberdeen 
came into office with a Coalition ministry. It contained 
many discordant elements, including Russell,who led in the 
Commons, and Palmerston, who was Home Secretary. 

Gladstone now became Chancellor of the Exchequer and 
moved from Carlton House Terrace, where he had hitherto 
lived, to Downing Street. 

His first budget was an unqualified success. Greville 
remarked of it that it had raised him to a great political 
elevation, while the Queen and Prince Albert expressed 
similar approval. " The first year of the Coalition govern- 
ment," Aberdeen wrote to Gladstone afterwards, '' was 

* Sichel, 295. 



314 GLADSTONE 

eminently prosperous, and this was chiefly owing to your 
own personal exertions and to the boldness, ability and 
success of your financial measures."* 

With 1854 came the Crimean War and consequent rifts 
in the Cabinet. Gladstone concurred with the government 
policy, though without enthusiasm. He was much more 
occupied with University and Civil Service reform, though 
he was anxious to support the Christian populations in 
the Near East. 

In January 1855 the Coalition ministry resigned. Lord 
Derby, who at first tried to form a government, asked both 
Palmerston and Gladstone to join, but they refused. Lord 
Lansdowne and Lord John Russell then made similar 
offers, but with no better result. At last, with great 
hesitation and under strong pressure from Lord Aberdeen, 
his late leader, Gladstone agreed to join Palmerston's 
ministry, but a few days later he left it on the question of 
an enquiry into the conduct of the war. He then rather 
veered to the official Conservatives, who had now practically 
abjured Protection, but he was really in a state of political 
isolation, and on Derby's forming his second government 
in 1858 he felt it best not to join. In May 1858 Disraeli 
himself urged him to take office, but Gladstone kept to his 
former decision. In October of that year, however, he 
agreed to go or.t to the Ionian Islands to regulate their 
position, and there he remained for about five months, 
during which he did some useful constructive work as 
High Commissioner. In this year he published his book on 
" Homer and the Homeric Age." 

In 1859 Lord Derby was defeated, and Palmerston 
returned to office. Gladstone now again accepted the post 
of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and thus definitely joined 
the Liberal party. The next six years were specially 
marked by his budgets, in which he set the finances of the 
country in order upon a broad Free Trade basis, and by his 
sympathies for the cause of Continental and particularly 
Italian freedom, in the attainment of which his influence 
was a leading factor. It was at this time that he made the 
* Morley, " Gladstone," i. 484. 



PRIME MINISTER 315 

famous utterance, " There is no barrier like the breasts of 
freemen. ' ' * But though he gained an increase of reputation 
he also raised up numerous opponents, and in the general 
election of 1865 he was defeated at Oxford and had to find 
a seat in Lancashire. In that year the death of Lord 
Palmerston gave him the definite lead in the House of 
Commons, but Lord Russell, who succeeded as Prime 
Minister, was only able to hold the government together 
for eight months. His Reform Bill was practically de- 
feated in June 1866 and the Liberal Cabinet then resigned. 

Gladstone now took his place on the Opposition bench for 
the first time for many years. Russell soon afterwards 
determined to retire from the leadership of the party, and 
on Gladstone devolved the principal conduct of the resist- 
ance to the Conservative ministry under Derby and 
Disraeli. At the general election in 1868 the Liberals 
were returned by a large majority. Disraeli then resigned, 
and on December 1 Gladstone was sent for by the Queen 
to form a government. He was at Hawarden felling a tree 
when the message from Windsor came. On reading it he 
merely said, " Very significant," and went on with his work.f 

The construction of his Cabinet was not difiicult. It was 
sound and homogeneous, and for the next six years the 
output of legislation was remarkable. Irish disestablish- 
ment, Irish land acts, education, army reform, the ballot— 
these were all new measures which were added to the 
international work made by the Franco-German War and to 
the many extraneous incidents occurring in a long adminis- 
tration. By March 1873 public opinion had begun to 
tire of too much progress, and the government were just 
defeated on an Irish University Bill. Disraeli, however, 
would not form a ministry, and Gladstone continued in 
office. In August he also undertook the duties of Chancellor 
of the Exchequer on a rearrangement of the Cabinet. His 
prestige, however, was shaken, and in January 1874 he 
advised a dissolution, which resulted in a victory for the 
Conservatives. On February 17 he resigned office, declining 
a peerage which the Queen offered him. 

* Morley, " Gladstone," ii. 4. t Ibid., ii. 252. 



316 GLADSTONE 

He now determined to retire from politics, Ms reasons 
being his age — he was sixty-four — the absence of any 
positive aim in his party, and an idea that he was perhaps 
out of sympathy with them. Lords Granville and 
Hartington took his place in the Lords and Commons 
respectively, and for five years he now remained in com- 
parative political seclusion, chiefly occupied with literature. 
But the Eastern question and the wrongs of the Christian 
nations in the Balkan peninsula again made a strong call 
upon his sympathy and brought him back to the front, and 
in 1877 he began to resume his former activity. 

In 1879 he made his famous Midlothian campaign, a 
succession of inspired declamations which had an immense 
efiect on the country. Next year came the general 
election. The Liberals carried everything before them, 
and Gladstone was triumphantly returned to Parliament. 
Lord Hartington having declined to attempt the formation 
of a government, the Queen was obliged to confide the task 
to Gladstone, and he again became Eirst Lord of the 
Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1880, He 
was then seventy-one years of age. His second ministry 
was not as successful as his first had been. It partook 
much more of the nature of a coalition and included in it 
several disruptive elements. Unfortunate events abroad 
marred its career. It passed a Reform bill, but a war with 
the Boers, Majuba, troubles in Egypt, Khartoum, the 
questions of Russia and Afghanistan, as well as the con- 
tinual menace of the Eenians in Ireland, gave it a series of 
damaging blows. Gladstone had not quite the control 
that he used to have, or at any rate he did not exercise it. 
Although his concentration was still intense, his policy 
tended to be rather diffuse and dogmatic. In June 1885 
a combination of the Conservative and Parnellite parties 
defeated him on an amendment to the budget, and on his 
resignation Lord Salisbury, after some demur, took office, 
though the Liberals still controlled the House of Commons. 
The Queen on this occasion again pressed Gladstone to 
accept an earldom, but again he refused. 

Salisbury could not long continue with a hostile majority 



LATER MINISTRIES 317 

in the House of Commons, and in the whiter Parliament 
was dissolved. The general election resulted in giving 
the Liberals 333 members, the Conservatives 251 and the 
Parnellites 86. Gladstone was thus dependent on the 
Irish vote. In January 1886 the Conservatives were 
defeated, and Gladstone became Prime Minister for the 
third time, with a promise of some measure of self-govern- 
ment for Ireland in the front of his programme. Lords 
Hartington and Derby refused to join the Cabinet, but 
Lords Spencer, Granville, and Rosebery, Mr. Chamberlain, 
Sir W. Harcourt and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman became 
members of it. An Irish Home Rule Bill was introduced. 
To many Liberals it was unsatisfactory, and on the 8th of 
June it was defeated. Gladstone then dissolved Parlia- 
ment, and returning with a considerably reduced following 
resigned in July and was again succeeded by Salisbury. 

The immediate effect of the Irish Bill was a split in the 
Liberal party, which kept it from permanent office for 
twenty years and which was soon followed by a further 
split in the Irish party. 

Liberal Unionists and Gladstonian Liberals, Parnellites 
and anti-Parnellites, now came into being. Gladstone was 
nearing eighty, and for the greater part of the next six 
years he took a less active part in politics, travelling a good 
a^al in France, Italy and Germany. Occasionally he 
undertook a speaking campaign, and his popularity with 
his own supporters still remained unchallenged. His name 
had become principally identified with Home Rule, but his 
age, his attainments, his experience and his consummate 
powers of oratory maintained him in an unrivalled position. 

In 1892 the Liberals and Irish won the general election 
by a small majority, and Gladstone became Prime Minister 
for the fourth time, at the age of eighty-two. He took the 
office of Lord Privy Seal, as well as that of First Lord of 
the Treasury, with the lead in the House of Commons. 

A new Home Rule Bill was framed. Through an ex- 
ceptionally protracted session it was tediously fought out, 
largely by Gladstone's own efiorts, and it passed its third 
reading in the House of Commons by only thirty-four 



318 GLADSTONE 

votes. Tlie Lords at once threw it out by the enormous 
preponderance of 419 to 41. This marked a definite break 
in Gladstone's political engagements. He had done his 
best for Ireland, though without final success. 

Early in 1894 he was in disagreement with his Cabinet 
on the question of the naval estimates, and he was also 
greatly handicapped in the House of Commons by his age, 
his deafness and his failing physical powers. The moment 
seemed propitious for him to retire from politics, and 
accordingly, in March 1894, he resigned his office and was 
succeeded by Lord Eosebery. The remainder of his life he 
passed at Ha warden or at Cannes, still wonderfully vigorous 
and alert, though his health gradually weakened. On the 
19th of May, 1898, he died at the age of eighty-eight, having 
been Prime Minister for over thirteen years. He left a 
widow and several children, one of whom, the present Lord 
Gladstone, has risen to Cabinet rank and been Governor- 
General of South Africa. He was accorded a public funeral 
and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Gladstone was a tall, handsome man with a strong 
profile, firm mouth, thin lips and prominent chin. He had 
remarkable physical strength and phenomenal energy, 
enabling him often to do as much as sixteen hours work a 
day even in later life. His voice was clear, flexible and 
musical, though his utterance was marked by a slight 
Lancastrian burr. In speaking his gestures were varied 
and animated. As an orator he was in the very foremost 
rank, for he could equally sway the House of Commons 
or a public meeting. He was one of the first Prime 
Ministers who made regular progresses and campaigns 
of platform-speaking through the country. "It is a new 
thing," wrote Lord Shaftesbury in 1879, " and a very serious 
thing to see the Prime Minister on the stump."* But his 
copious language, his discursive style and his intense 
passion often marred his best effects. In debate he was 
apt and ready, but he excelled in attack much more than 
in retort. As an administrator of the national finances he 
was probably unsurpassed, and his finest work was done as 

* Jennings, 368. 



HIS CHARACTER 319 

Chancellor of the Exchequer. His lucid methods, his 
economy, his thoroughness, his regard for detail and his 
knowledge of business fitted him eminently for this 
office. As a leader he possessed most of the faculties for 
inspiring and retaining the confidence and loyalty of his 
party — eloquence, sincerity and courage. 

Gladstone's dominant characteristics were love of religion 
and love of right. He believed intensely in all his own 
political creeds, whatever they might be for the moment, 
and could hardly understand any genuine difference from 
them. Yet he was essentially modest and humble, con- 
tinually ascribing his successes to a higher power. Born 
and bred a Tory, but a Tory of the younger school of 
Canning, he gradually moved across the political arena — 
like many of his predecessors. Power he delighted in 
and pm'sued, but much more for the good that its exercise 
promised than for any personal profit. 

Throughout much of his political career he was in 
advance of his party, and at times he had to undergo 
considerable odium in consequence. But his progress 
from one point of view to another was always clear, logical 
and honest, and he never changed his views except as the 
result of reason. He was a scholar of a very high order — 
well versed in both the ancient and modern languages 
and their classics. Music he delighted in, and in his own 
simple forms of outdoor amusements — scenery, forestry 
and walking. In humour and the lighter sides of pleasure 
he was wanting, and he could only with difficulty appreciate 
a joke. He had always regarded life so seriously, so much 
as an ordained and godly pilgrimage, and his days were so 
closely packed with official business, literary labours or 
regularized recreation, that he had neither the desire nor 
the opportunity to turn aside from his fixed paths. This 
got him a reputation of overrighteousness, and to many he 
seemed a stern, cold, wrong-headed man. But to his 
intimates he showed deep affection and sympathy, and on 
occasions he could manifest true generosity to his political 
opponents. 

Disraeli was a Mephistopheles that he could never com- 



320 GLADSTONE 

prehend. Neither his books, his policy nor his enigmatic 
and cynical views appealed to Gladstone in the least: for 
Gladstone was nervous, emotional, strenuous, interested, 
while his great opponent seemed to typify many of the 
opposite qualities. Disraeli considered him malignant 
towards himself, and it is true that some of Gladstone's 
fiercest invectives were directed against the " mystery 
man " — though the invectives were rather those of the 
patriotic puritan than of the individual enemy. Their 
epic fight continued for most of their political lives : 

E^ ov 8r] TO, Trpcora Btao'T'^Trjv (picravTe 
'Arpei'Srj'i re ava^ avSpcov /cat Stos 'A^tAA-ci^s. 

As early as 1839 Macaulay wrote a sketch of Gladstone 
which portrays traits that distinguished him for many 
years after. " His mind," he said, "is of a large grasp, 
nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. But he does not give 
his intellect fair play. There is no want of light but a 
great want of what Bacon would have called dry light. 
Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted and distorted 
by a false medium of passion and prejudices. His style 
bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of thinking, 
and indeed exercises great influence on his mode of 
thinking. His rhetoric, though often good of its kind, 
darkens and perplexes the logic which it should illustrate. 
Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren imagina- 
tion and scanty vocabulary, would have saved him 
from almost half his mistakes. He has one gift most 
dangerous to a speculator — a vast command of a kind of 
language, grave and majestic but of vague and uncertain 
import." * It was thus " he rode the whirlwind of politics ." f 

Gladstone had certain defects which seriously handi- 
capped him. He was too inclined to be credulous, not 
always a good critic of character, often intolerant. Al- 
though his manners were ceremonious and his demeanour 
towards ladies " a model of chivalrous propriety," like 
Peel he had no small- talk. " He is so consumed by zeal 
for great subjects," said Mr. George Russell, " that he 

* Macaulay, vi. 328. t Rosebery, " MisceU.," ii. 213. 



HIS POLITICS 321 

leaves out of account the possibility tliat they may not 
interest other people."* Indeed, he was strenuous to a 
degree that bordered on the hot-gospeller. But as Wilber- 
force wrote of him : " When people talk of Gladstone going 
mad they do not take into account the wonderful elasticity 
of his mind and the variety of his interests. This is his 
safeguard joined to entire rectitude of purpose and clearness 
of view."t 

Undoubtedly the fact that his relations with his 
Sovereign were never really genial or sympathetic limited 
the scope of his influence. " He speaks to me as if I was 
a public meeting," is a remark ascribed to Queen Victoria.* 
Yet his private friends were numerous and they included 
the greatest names of his day in the Church, in art and in 
letters. His reading was profound, more profound perhaps 
than his writings suggest, for the multiplicity of public 
afEairs just prevented him reaching the highest pitch of 
scholarship. 

His political experience was vast. In the course of a 
busy life he had seen or known nineteen past or future 
Prime Ministers of England, and had mixed with nearly 
every society from the days of the Regent to the verge of 
the twentieth century. And in a sense it was his excep- 
tional age and position that in the end defeated him. 
He became the single survivor of a past epoch, an historic 
figure towering above younger generations, an oracle that 
obsessed and almost crushed his disciples. To the Irish 
question he eventually became so closely wedded that in 
the eyes of half England that was his leit motif, while the 
famous budgets of the sixties and seventies and the whirl- 
wind speeches of the Midlothian campaign were almost 
forgotten. To-day it is too soon completely to focus his 
right place in history, but the chief landmarks, the salient 
facts of his career can hardly be mistaken. A great orator, 
scholar and patriot, intensely animated by religion, 
driven forward by a desire that his country should do right, 
and gifted with the deepest resources of mental and bodily 
strength, he devoted his life to faith, to knowledge and to 
* Russell, " Collections," 191. f Jennings, 360. 



322 CAMPBELL-BANNEEMAN 

action. He made many successes and many failures — 
as he himself was the first to admit — but after a longer 
and more strenuous life than any of his predecessors had 
enjoyed he left behind him a name for steadfastness, for 
integrity and for piety, which few statesmen of his rank 
have emulated and which certainly none have excelled. 

II.— CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 

Henry Campbell, afterwards Sir Henry Campbell-Ban- 
nerman, was born at Kilvinside House, near Glasgow, on 
the 7th of September, 1836, the second son of Sir James 
Campbell of Stracathro House, Forfar, by Janet, daughter 
of Henry Bannerman, a rich Manchester manufacturer. 
His grandfather, James Campbell, came to Glasgow from 
Menteith in 1805, and set up there as a yarn merchant. 
He had two sons, who subsequently started a large tailoring 
and drapery business. One of them, James, rose to be 
Lord Provost of his city and was knighted in 1841. He 
became a very wealthy man, purchased an estate and was 
a strong Conservative. 

Henry Campbell was educated first at the Glasgow High 
School, next at Glasgow University, and then at Trinity 
College, Cambridge, where he took his degree with double 
honours in classics and mathematics. At the age of 
twenty-four he married Sarah Charlotte, daughter of 
General Sir C. Bruce, a woman of great strength of character 
and intelligence, and his close and constant friend and 
adviser through life. He was a good man of afiairs, able, 
keen and sociable, and became an early member of the 
Lanarkshire volunteers, rising to the rank of captain. 

Until 1868 he worked in his father's business, but he 
then turned to politics, and at his second attempt in that 
year was elected member for Stirling boroughs, a consti- 
tuency which he represented for the whole of his political 
career. He showed himself a strong and independent 
Liberal and an ardent supporter of the general policy 
of Mr. Gladstone, particularly on Scottish affairs and 
education. In 1871 he was appointed Financial Secretary 



SECRETARY FOR WAR 323 

to the War Office, under Cardwell, and was soon known 
as a hard-working and popular minister. 

A year later he inherited the large fortune of his 
maternal uncle, with a Kentish estate, and he then took 
the additional name of Bannerman. 

In 1874 the Conservatives came into office, and for the 
next six years he took comparatively little part in the House 
of Commons debates, speaking as a rule only on Scottish 
or army questions. On the Liberals returning to power in 
1880 he resumed his old place, with Childers as his chief. 
Two years later he was transferred in the same capacity 
to the Admiralty, and represented that department in 
the House of Commons, Lord Northbrook, the First Lord, 
being in the Upper House. In 1884 he was made Chief 
Secretary for Ireland, where Lord Spencer was then Lord- 
Lieutenant. Here he remained for only a few months, 
but during that time he managed to perform his duties 
with credit, and it was said of him that he was perhaps the 
only man who left that difficult post without having 
damaged himself politically. Parnell called him " an 
Irish Secretary who left things alone — a sensible thing 
for an Irish Secretary " ; while Healy said that he governed 
Ireland with Scotch jokes.* 

In the short government of 1886 Campbell-Bannerman 
was Secretary for War, entering the Cabinet then for the 
first time. He had declared himself thoroughly in agree- 
ment with Gladstone's Home Rule policy, and this opened 
up promotion for him. After the resignation of the 
Liberals in that year he worked hard on the Opposition 
side, and also served in 1888 as a member of the Royal 
Commission on the civil administration of the naval and 
military departments, of which he signed the minority 
report. 

In 1892 the Liberals again came into power, and 
Campbell-Bannerman returned to his old place at the 
War Office. He was by now a well-known and considerable 
figure in the House of Commons, distinguished alike by 
his personal and political good qualities. When Lord 
* Nat. Biog., 2 Supp., i. 303. 



324 CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 

Rosebery's government was defeated in June 1895 on the 
cordite question, a War Office matter, Sir William Harcourt 
said of him that there was " no more able, more respected, 
or more popular minister in the House."* It was felt that 
he had been hardly treated on this vote, and in the resigna- 
tion honours he was knighted and given the Grand Cross 
of the Bath. At this time he was very anxious to be 
elected Speaker of the House of Commons, a choice that 
would probably have been agreeable to both political 
parties, but his colleagues in the Cabinet, aware of his 
merits as a minister and perhaps as a possible leader, 
dissuaded him from it. 

In 1897 the affairs of South Africa began to loom on the 
political horizon. Campbeli-Bannerman was selected as 
a member of the South African Committee on the raid of 
Dr. Jameson, and agreed in its findings. His position in 
the party now rapidly became more important. In 1896 
Lord Rosebery retired from the Liberal leadership, and his 
place was taken by Lord Kimberley in the Lords and Sir 
William Harcourt in the Commons. Two years later the 
latter in turn withdrew, and at a meeting at the Reform 
Club in February 1899 Campbeli-Bannerman was unani- 
mously chosen to succeed him. He was recognized as 
a thoroughly sound Liberal, an able and active adminis- 
trator with a long experience of office, and, though he was as 
yet comparatively little known in the outside world, he 
enjoyed the confidence and esteem of his colleagues and 
his followers in Parliament. He at once showed that he 
was determined to lead. Home Rule, he said, could no 
longer be made the first item in the Liberal programme, but 
the old watchwords of Peace, Retrenchment and Reform 
he firmly upheld. The policy of the South African War he 
opposed, though once the war was begun he supported the 
measures necessary for carrying it on. But the details of 
the campaign he continually criticized, and his famous 
remark on the " methods of barbarism " of the system of 
concentration camps nearly caused a permanent division 
in his party. At this time he had great difficulties to 
* Nat. Biog., 2 Supp., i. 304. 



PRIME MINISTER 325 

contend with. The right wing of the Liberals, led by Lord 
Rosebery and Mr. Asquith, advocated a more imperial 
policy, while the left wing, with Mr. Lloyd George as a 
protagonist, gave their principal attention to peace and 
domestic reforms. Campbell-Bannerman strove to come 
to terms with the seceders, though he never concealed his 
views. The first duty of the ministry after victory had 
been secured would be, he said, " to aim at the conciliation 
and harmonious co-operation of the two European races 
in South Africa . . . and to restore to the conquered states 
the rights of self-government."* To this policy he always 
adhered and he was subsequently able to give it effect. 
But in the meantime he underwent unmeasured obloquy 
which he met with undaunted courage. 

In 1903 Mr. Chamberlain launched his fiscal proposals 
for Colonial Protection and Tariff Reform. They split up 
the Conservative government and several members of the 
Cabinet resigned. Campbell-Bannerman took full advantage 
of the movement, proclaiming the vital necessity of Free 
Trade to a country situated as was England. He was 
strongly supported by all sections of the Liberals and by 
many Conservatives. The use of Chinese workmen in South 
Africa under questionable conditions supplied another 
ground for attack on the government. The Unionists had 
lost many of their leading men by death or retirement, they 
had been ten years in office and their counsels were divided. 
In December 1905 Mr. Balfour determined to resign. 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as the leader of the official 
Liberals in the House of Commons, was at once sent for 
by King Edward. Only a section of the party adhered 
to Lord Rosebery; Sir William Harcourt and Lord 
Kimberley were dead, and there was no one else likely to 
be able to form a strong government. Campbell-Banner- 
man accepted, rapidly composed his Cabinet, in which he 
included Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, Mr. Lloyd George 
and Sir Edward Grey, and then at once dissolved Parlia- 
ment. " Some attempts had been made to induce him 
to go to the House of Lords, but he firmly resisted any 
* J^at. Biog., 2 Supp., i. 306. 



326 CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 

such suggestion. " It is I," he said, " who am the head of 
this Government; it is I who have the King's command. 
... I will not have any condition of the kind imposed 
upon me."* The Liberal programme for reforms in the 
many questions of housings rating, licensing, poor law, plural 
voting, payment of members and the like attracted the 
country; and the party was returned to power by a larger 
majority than any since 1832. With the Labour members 
and without the Irish they had a preponderance of some 
270 votes over the Unionists. 

Campbell-Bannerman at once accorded self-government 
to South Africa and set up the Union. In the next session 
he brought in three of his promised reforms. All were 
passed by the House of Commons, while one, the Trades 
Disputes Bill, was accepted by the Lords. But the Bill 
for abolishing Plural Voting they rejected, and the 
Education Bill they so amended that it had to be dropped. 
In consequence of these refusals of the Upper House to 
accept measures thus sent up to them, Campbell-Banner- 
man carried a resolution in the House of Commons that 
the " will of the people should be made to prevail." It was 
a presage of the Parliament Act passed by his successor. 

This completed his work. In the summer of 1906 his 
wife had died. His attendance on her during her last 
illness had been a severe strain on his strength, and her 
death was a serious blow to him. He was over seventy 
years of age, and the labours of the office which he held 
had immensely increased. He had insisted on remaining 
in the House of Commons, despite a strong wish of some 
of his colleagues that he should accept a peerage. The 
combined burdens proved too much for him. In November 
1907 he had a heart attack. He went abroad to Biarritz 
for some weeks and returned to the House of Commons in 
February 1908; but influenza then supervened and he 
became rapidly worse. On April 4 he resigned his post, 
and on April 22 he died, leaving no issue. He was buried 
at Meigle in Scotland, and a tablet was put up to him in 
"Westminster Abbey. At the time of his death he had 

* Shaw, 263 




C. Forbes pinx. 

SIK HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 



To face page 32a 



HIS CHAEACTEE 327 

become the Father of the House of Conimons, having sat 
in it for just on forty years. He was the first Prime 
Minister to receive as such a definite place in the scale of 
precedence, that of the former Lord Treasurer. 

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was a solid, well-built 
man, with a rubicund fat face, clear bright eyes and a 
humorous expression — a typical well-to-do Scotsman. 
Though a man of ample means, a good linguist, a well-read 
scholar and a traveller, he never moved much in general 
society, living for the most part at Belmont Castle, an 
estate which he had purchased in Fife, in London or at 
continental watering-places. It is too early to attempt 
to estimate his political place in history, for he has only 
been dead fourteen years. But his personal qualities 
were simple and well known. Of imperturbable good- 
temper, cheery, modest, fearless, generous and determined, 
he was an honest, sound and plucky commander in the most 
difficult days. Not an orator, he was a ready and witty 
debater and a strong and effective speaker on public plat- 
forms. " Simplicity of character, directness of vision 
and extraordinary toleration " distinguished him. " He 
saw affectation through and through."* An example of 
Tout vient a qui sait attendre, his long service, his 
popularity, and his wise, firm and constant courage gave 
him a leadership which he had deserved and which he 
maintained with credit. He was, said Mr. Asquith, " calm, 
patient, persistent, indomitable. He was the least cynical 
of mankind, but no one had a keener eye for the humours 
and ironies of the political situation. He was a strenuous 
and uncompromising fighter, a strong party man, but he 
harboured no resentment. He met both good and evil 
fortune with the same unclouded brow, the same unruffled 
temper, the same unshakable confidence in the justice and 
righteousness of his cause."! 



In the forty years that had elapsed from the commence- 
ment of Gladstone's first administration to the death of 

* Shaw, 236. f Nat. Biog., 2 Supp., i. 311. 

22 



328 CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 

Campbell-Bannerman the Liberals had been in office for 
a much shorter period of time than their opponents. 
Divisions of policy and of party had handicapped their 
hold on the country and weakened their strength. But at 
last the clouds had broken and a rosy dawn shone before 
them. With an immense majority, a popular programme 
and a capable Cabinet, they seemed destined to enjoy an 
exceptionally long lease of power. But 

" Fortuna saevo Iseta negotio 
Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax 
Transmutat incertos honores." 

A constitutional struggle, domestic dissensions and 
a world-war of colossal magnitude rapidly changed the 
whole face of politics and by 1915 England was again 
under the sway of a coalition, the first she had experienced 
for more than sixty years. 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE PEE SENT DAY 

LORD ROSEBERY, MR. BALFOUR, MR. ASQUITH 
AND MR. LLOYD GEORGE 

Four past or present holders of the office of Prime Minister 
are now alive. Three of them have attained their 
seventieth year; three are distinguished men of letters; 
three belong to the Liberal side of politics and three are 
members of the House of Commons; only one is a peer. 
All are prominent and honoured figures in public life, and 
some of them are likely to play a further part in the affairs 
of state in the future. It is far too soon to attempt here 
any review of their history or estimation of their work 
when neither is finished; such criticisms would be incom- 
plete and impertinent. But it may not be amiss to give 
some short account of the principal facts in their lives, 
apart from those which are matters of opinion or dispute. 
In this manner it may be possible to observe the modern 
trend of the highest political careers under the rapidly 
changing conditions of society and the wide developments 
of modern democracy. 

The first quarter of the twentieth century has not yet 
elapsed, but in sixteen years three successive Prime 
Ministers have all been drawn from the same side of politics 
and from the so-called middle classes of the community. 
Only once before has the power been held for so long a period 
by men unsupported by birth or connection, and not for a 
century has it remained so continuously in the hands of 
a single party. Such a sequence seems to point a very 
striking moral and to indicate a crucial change in the 
canons of the old order. 

329 



330 LOED ROSEBERY 



I.— LORD ROSEBERY 

The Hon. Archibald Philip Primrose, first called Lord 
Dalmeny and afterwards fifth Earl of Rosebery, was born 
at 20, Charles Street, Berkeley Square, London, on the 
7th of May, 1847. He was the elder son of Archibald, Lord 
Dalmeny, and grandson of the fourth earl. His mother. 
Lady Catherine Stanhope, a daughter of Philip, fourth 
Earl Stanhope, had been one of the most beautiful women 
of her day. After the death of her husband she married 
the last Duke of Cleveland and to the end of her life was 
a famous figure in society. 

The Primroses had been settled in Perthshire and 
Midlothian since the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
Cavaliers in the Great Rebellion, they had been raised to 
the Scottish peerage in 1700 and advanced to an earldom 
three years later, while in 1828 the fourth earl had received 
a barony of the United Kingdom. Rich landowners, they 
were connected with many of the leading families in the 
kingdom, and collaterally with those of Pitt and Grenville. 
The fourth earl, who lived to the great age of eighty-four, 
was a link with the French Revolution, the Regency and 
the Reform Bill, while his son had sat in Parliament for 
fourteen years. A political career was thus the heritage 
of their descendant. 

Archibald Primrose lost his father when he was only four 
years of age, and then took the courtesy title of Lord 
Dalmeny on becoming heir to his grandfather. He was 
brought up principally in Scotland until he went to Eton. 
There his tutor was Mr. William Johnson (afterwards 
known as Mr. Cory), a man of exceptional genius and 
attainments, whose chief recorded remarks of his pupil 
were that he wished for palmam sine pulvere, and that 
he was a budding bibliomaniac. In his company Lord 
Dalmeny travelled to France and Italy in his holidays 
and was early introduced to the delights of literature and 
art. In his school work he showed no remarkable industry, 
though plenty of talent, but he distinguished himself on 




archibald primrose 
5th earl of ROSEBERY 



To face "page 330 



EARLY LIFE 331 

the river, pulling an oar in the Monarch, and he was also 
elected a member of Pop, In 1866 he went on to Christ 
Church, Oxford, where he was one of the last of the 
gentlemen-commoners or " tufts." His University career, 
however, was prematurely cut short, for the College 
authorities did not take the same view that he did as to the 
necessity of racehorses as a part of the official curriculum, 
and he was compelled to go down without having taken his 
degree. Two years later he succeeded his grandfather and 
took his seat in the House of Lords. 

In 1871 Lord Rosebery made his maiden speech on 
seconding the address. Subsequently he used to speak 
regularly once or twice every session, and he acquired a 
reputation for unusual eloquence and ability. In 1873 he 
was appointed lord-lieutenant of Linlithgow and some- 
time later on of Midlothian. He was also made a com- 
missioner of Scottish Endowments. 

At the age of thirty he married Hannah, only daughter 
and heiress of Baron Meyer de Rothschild, who brought 
him an immense fortune. In the same year he was elected 
Lord Rector of Aberdeen University and began to take 
an increasing interest in politics. Mr. Gladstone was then 
starting his famous Midlothian campaign, and in this Lord 
Rosebery played a prominent part. His influence and his 
means were employed with considerable effect on behalf of 
the Liberal leader, and they contributed not a little to his 
success. It was Mr. Gladstone who called him " the man 
of the future." 

Lord Rosebery, by his abilities, his rank and his wealth, 
was thus marked out for high place. In 1880 the Liberals 
were returned to power, and a year later he was appointed 
Under-Secretary at the Home Office. This post, however, 
he only held until May 1883. He then resigned and made 
a long journey in Australia, where he occupied himself 
actively in imperial questions. A year later he brought 
forward one of his earliest motions on the reform of the 
House of Lords, a subject which has always been in the 
forefront of his programme. 

In February 1885 he rejoined the government as First 



332 LORD ROSEBERY 

Commissioner of Works and Lord Privy Seal, and in the 
short Liberal administration of 1886 he was promoted to 
the important position of Foreign Secretary. After the 
defeat of the government in that year he went off to travel 
in India, and during the ensuing long period of opposition 
he bore his share in the debates in the House of Lords, 
where his powers of oratory had by now won him a leading 
place. In 1890 he lost his wife, from whom he inherited 
Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. 

On the resumption of office by Mr. Gladstone in 1892, 
Lord Rosebery again became Foreign Secretary and 
remained so until March 1894, when, on Mr. Gladstone's 
retirement, he succeeded as Prime Minister as the personal 
choice of Queen Victoria. He then became First Lord 
of the Treasury and Lord President, relinquishing the 
Foreign Office. A year later the government was defeated, 
and Lord Rosebery, whose Cabinet had not hung together 
very well, at once resigned. 

In the meantime he had had many other activities. He 
had interested himself seriously in municipal government, 
and from 1889 to 1890 had acted as the first Chairman of 
the London County Council. His racing stable had brought 
him remarkable success and popularity, for he had won the 
Derby for two years running, 1894-1895, a feat never before 
accomplished by a Prime Minister. His taste in the arts 
and in letters and his wealth had enabled him to form 
large and important collections of books and pictures; and 
henceforward his pursuits lay as much in the direction of 
literature as of politics. In 1896 he determined to resign 
the leadership of the Liberal party. For some years he 
headed the Liberal League, an imperialist or right wing 
association, but he gradually found himself out of sympathy 
with the main body of the Liberals on Home Rule and other 
subjects to which he had never been much drawn. 

About this time the late Mr. George Russell, a critic 
and colleague well qualified to speak, wrote of him: " In 
appearance, air and tastes Lord Rosebery is still young. 
In experience, knowledge and conduct he is already old. 
He has had a vivid and a varied experience. He is equally 



HIS TALENTS 333 

at home on Epsom Downs and in the House of Lords. His 
life has been full of action, incident and interest. He has 
not only collected books, but has read them; and has found 
time, even amid the engrossing demands of the London 
County Council, the Turf and the Foreign Office, not only for 
study, but — what is much more remarkable — for thought."* 
And he goes on to notice Lord Eosebery's brilliant gifts 
of observation, humour, conversation and sympathy. 

After the death of Queen Victoria, Lord Rosebery made 
fewer incursions into party polemics, though he still retained 
a small but important following, which included such 
notable figures as Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey and 
Mr. Haldane. But when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 
announced his programme on the fall of the Conservative 
government in 1905, Lord Rosebery declined to serve 
under that flag, though his lieutenants were willing to do so. 
For many years now he has not spoken in the House of 
Lords, but his contributions to literature have been hardly 
less striking than his successes as an orator. His principal 
writings include studies on past rulers and statesmen — 
Cromwell, Napoleon, Chatham, Pitt, Peel and Churchill. 
They have established his claim to a high rank as an 
historian and a master of the English language. 

Lord Rosebery, who is a K.G., a K.T., an F.R.S. and 
Chancellor of London University, was made Earl of Mid- 
lothian, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, on the 
occasion of King George's coronation. He now lives a 
very retired life and rarely appears in public. He has lost 
his younger son, Mr. Neil Primrose, a promising politician, 
who died of wounds in the recent European War, but he 
has an elder son living, as well as two daughters, one of 
whom is married to Lord Crewe. 

II.— MR. BALFOUR 

Arthur James Balfour was born on the 25th of July, 1848, 
at Whittinghame, in Haddingtonshire, the eldest son of 
James Maitland Balfour of that place, and of Lady Blanche 
* Russell, " Collections," 205. 



334 MR. BALFOUR 

Cecil, daughter of Jame.^, second Marquess of Salisbury. 
The Balfours were an o'i Lowland family of lairds who 
had long been settled on their own lands, an estate of 
considerable value. Mr. Balfour the elder died when his 
son was only eight years of age, and the latter was thus 
much thrown with his mother's relations. He went in due 
course to Eton, where he was fag to the present Lord 
Lansdowne, and then on to Trinity College, Cambridge. 
Here he took second-class honours in moral science in 1869, 
proceeding M.A. four years later. He was an athlete of 
some distinction, and has maintained a high place as a 
player of both varieties of tennis and of golf even in later 
life. 

In 1874 he was returned unopposed as Conservative 
member for Hertford, a borough largely under the influence 
of the Cecil family. At this time his uncle, Lord Salisbury, 
was a leading member of the Cabinet, and, on succeeding 
to the Foreign Ofhce soon afterwards he took his young 
nephew as private secretary. In this capacity Mr. Balfour 
accompanied Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury to the 
Berlin Conference in 1878 and so had the opportunity of 
getting an early and important experience of public 
business and European politics under two master minds. 
The Conservative government, however, went out of office 
in 1880, and Mr. Balfour, while in opposition, acted with the 
so-called fourth party, an independent and very militant 
wing of freelances made up of Lord Randolph Churchill, 
Sir John Gorst and Sir Henry Drummond- Wolff, Of these 
Mr. Balfour, though perhaps not the most industrious, was 
certainly not the least redoubtable in debate. 

About this time he published his first book, " A Defence 
of Philosophic Doubt." He had become the centre of an 
intellectual coterie of fashionable society which regarded 
him as a future leader of eclectic thought and politics. 
Although he had not apparently taken the House of 
Commons very seriously so far, he was destined for rapid 
advancement. His versatile attainments, his talents 
as a writer, a speaker and an athlete, his slim, agile figure 
and his attractive personality, appealed to many. His 



PEIME MINISTER 335 

uncle, who was shortly to become Prime Minister, had 
also a strong belief in his capacity. 

In 1885 the Conservatives returned to power, and Lord 
Salisbury appointed his nephew President of the Local 
Government Board, when he was sworn a privy councillor. 
In the next year, after Mr. Gladstone's short administration, 
he was made Secretary for Scotland and admitted to the 
Cabinet, and from 1887 to 1891 he was Chief Secretary for 
Ireland. This was his " baptism of fire."'* He distin- 
guished himself equally in his parliamentary and adminis- 
trative duties and he soon rose to a prominent position 
in the estimation of his colleagues and the public. On the 
death of Mr. W. H. Smith in October 1891, Mr. Balfour was 
selected to succeed him as leader of the House of Commons, 
and he then took the office of First Lord of the Treasury, 
the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, being Foreign Secretary. 

The Unionist government were defeated at the general 
election next year, and Mr. Balfour then led the Opposition 
in the Lower House until the return of his party to power 
in 1895. In that year he published what is perhaps his 
best-known work, " The Foundations of Belief." He now 
resumed his former place in the Cabinet, where he remained 
until the retirement of Lord Salisbury in the summer of 
1902. He then succeeded his uncle as Prime Minister, being 
just fifty-four years of age. 

Since 1885 he had sat for East Manchester. That city 
was the centre of the school of Free Trade, a question which 
was now again to come to the fore. The Protectionist 
doctrines of Mr. Chamberlain began to divide the Unionist 
party, and Mr. Balfour's talents were exercised to the full 
in endeavouring to maintain some agreement. But his 
efforts were not very successful and after several defections 
among his principal followers and the usual defeats re- 
sulting on an exceptionally long period of office, he deter- 
mined to resign in December 1905. The ensuing general 
election was won by the Liberals with an immense majority 
and Mr. Balfour lost his seat, though he was soon after- 
wards elected member for the City of London, a constituency 
* Lucy, " Lords and Commoners," 53. 



336 ME. BALFOUR 

wMcli lie still represents. He remained leader of the 
Unionist party up to 1911, when further dissensions caused 
him to retire from that position. He continued his political 
career, however, though rather less actively than before, 
and he also made further contributions to literature. 

In the Coalition ministry of Mr. Asquith in 1915, Mr. 
Balfour accepted the place of First Lord of the Admiralty, 
and in the following year he became Foreign Secretary 
under Mr. Lloyd George. In that capacity he undertook 
a special mission to the United States in connection with 
their entry into the European War, and in this delicate 
duty his tact and skill were of unrivalled value to the 
country. After his return to England in 1918, he attended 
the Peace Conference in Paris, where he acted as one of the 
British delegates. He was subsequently appointed Lord 
President of the Council, a position which he occupies at 
the present time, and he is also British representative on 
the Council of the League of Nations. 

Mr. Balfour has never married. He now takes com- 
paratively little part in the business of the House of 
Commons, though at the age of seventy-three he is still 
an active man, and, on occasion, can easily hold his old 
place in debate. He moves in the serener atmosphere of 
diplomacy, while music, art, games and society share his 
other interests. He has been called " a politician among 
philosophers and a philosopher among politicians.'' He is 
Chancellor of Cambridge and of Edinburgh Universities, 
holds many high academic distinctions and is an F.R.S. 
and a member of the Order of Merit. 

III.— MR. ASQUITH 

Herbert Henry Asquith was born at Croft House, Morley, 
in Yorkshire, on the 12th of September, 1852, the second 
son of Joseph Dixon Asquith, of that place, and of Emily, 
daughter of William Willans, a rich manufacturer of 
Huddersfield. Both his father and his paternal grandfather 
had been in the woollen trade, and were prominent Noncon- 
formists, while the Willans family were Congregationalists 




J . /Tadana 2^inx. 



ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR 



To face Tpage 336 



EAELY LIFE 337 

and strong Radicals. The Asquiths themselves came of 
an old Puritan stock, and all their leanings lay towards 
the Liberal side of politics. 

Mr. Joseph Asquith died in 1860, and his widow, who 
was much broken down in health, then went to her parents' 
home in Huddersfield, where her children came under the 
care of her own relations. 

After some preliminary education at home, Henry 
Asquith was sent to the City of London School. During 
these years he lived with his brother in lodgings in Pimlico, 
and was taught early in life to fend for himself. At the 
age of fourteen he used to practise speaking, and, like 
Lord John Russell before him, was a constant votary of 
the play. An apt and ardent worker, he succeeded 
when only seventeen in winning a scholarship at Balliol 
College, Oxford, and went up there in 1870. He had the 
reputation of being a strong classic, and he soon became 
a no less brilliant conversationalist. His University 
career was crowned with honours. He became Craven 
Scholar, he took a high degree with first-class honours, 
he was President of the Union and he was elected a Fellow 
of his College. His contemporaries were convinced of 
his future distinction, and he was the centre of a group 
of clear and sound thinkers and speakers. 

" See Asquith soon in Senates to be first 
If age shall ripen what his youth rehearsed." 

On leaving Oxford he acted for a few months as tutor to 
Lord Lymington, Lord Portsmouth's son, and after having 
eaten his dinners was called to the bar at Lincoln's 
Inn in 1876. 

In the next year he married his first wife, Helen, daughter 
of Frederick Melland of Manchester, and settled in Hamp- 
stead. He had only very moderate means, and for a long 
time he had but little work at the bar. To supplement his 
income he used to write for the Spectator and the Economist 
and to lecture for the University Extension Movement. 
But about 1884 he began to get into practice. Two years 
later he was able to win a seat in Parliament, being elected 



338 MR. ASQUITH 

M.P. for East Fife, a constituency which he represented for 
nearly a generation. He was a strong and determined 
Liberal and though he had not at first much leisure to 
devote to Parliament, his debating powers were soon 
recognized. At the bar he now made rapid progress, and 
in 1889 he was engaged as junior counsel with Sir Charles 
Russell in the famous case of The Times versus Parnell. 
His able management of this suit confirmed his position 
as an advocate and a lawyer. A year later he took silk 
and briefs began to come into his chambers very quickly. 
Mr. Gladstone had conceived a great admiration for his 
abilities, and on the Liberals coming into office in 1892 
he did not hesitate to put the young Q.C. straight into the 
high post of Home Secretary, with a seat in the Cabinet. 

Mr. Asquith had lost his wife in the preceding year, and 
with a young family to bring up, his duties in the House 
of Commons to attend to and the business of a great 
department of State to conduct, he needed all his energies. 
He showed that he was equal to his task, and earned the 
reputation of being the best Home Secretary of modern 
times. Problems of industry, labour and social reform 
chiefly occupied his attention, but he never failed to take 
a line of his own in the support of law and order when the 
necessity arose, making it clear that he was above all party 
considerations where the State was concerned. His pro- 
jects were broad and bold. "It is both a higher and a 
harder task," he once said, " to make than to take a city. 
Patriotism, like charity, begins at home."* His principal 
measure, the Factory Bill, was subsequently passed into 
law by the Conservative government. 

In 1894 he married as his second wife Margaret, daughter 
of Sir Charles Tennant, Bart., a lady of exceptional intel- 
lectual and social qualities, who brought him some accession 
of fortune. 

A year later Lord Rosebery was defeated and resigned, 

and Mr. Asquith found himself in opposition. During 

the next ten years the Liberal party was divided and 

dispirited and its prospects sank at times to the lowest 

* Spender, " Asquith," 64. 




S. J. Solomon j^itTx. 

HERBERT HENRY ASQUITH 



By kind permission of Messrs. Raphael Tuck & Sons, tlie publishers 

To face page 33S 



I 



PRIME MINISTER 339 

depths, but Mr. Asquith always remained a tower of 
strength to them. He had returned to the bar and prac- 
tised in the higher courts, but he kept well to the front in 
politics, and on Lord Rosebery's retirement from the 
Liberal leadership in 1896 his name was canvassed as 
his possible successor. He stood aside, however, and 
though he subsequently associated himself with Lord Rose- 
bery and the Liberal League, in company with Sir Edward 
Grey and Mr. Haldane, on all the main points of policy 
of his party he was constantly loyal to his left-wing col- 
leagues. At last, in 1905, the luck of the Liberals turned, 
and on Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's becoming Prime 
Minister it was patent that only Mr. Asquith could be his 
first lieutenant. 

In December 1905 he was appointed Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, and while holding that position was responsible 
for the Old Age Pensions Act and for two eminently suc- 
cessful budgets. Sixteen months later, on the death of 
his leader, he became Prime Minister, and remained at 
the head of the government during the crisis of the struggle 
with the House of Lords, the Parliament Bill, the Irish 
troubles and the first half of the European War. 

For a short time in 1914 he held the seals of the War 
0£&ce as well as those of the Treasury, and for the next 
two years he also acted as Chairman of the Defence 
Committee. In 1915 he reconstructed the ministry on a 
Coalition basis, admitting several of the leading Unionists 
to it. In the summer of the next year he lost his eldest 
son, Mr. Raymond Asquith, a young barrister of excep- 
tional talents and promise, who gave his life fighting 
in the trenches in France. 

By this time he had held the ofiice of Prime Minister 
continuously for eight years, a period only exceeded in the 
last century by Lord Liverpool. The complexity and pres- 
sure of the vast duties of directing the affairs of the British 
Empire had enormously increased, and the stress and 
magnitude of the cataclysmal contest in which the country 
was engaged had told heavily upon him. Towards the 
end of the year 1916 differences arose between him and his 



340 ME. LLOYD GEOEGE 

principal colleague, Mr. Lloyd George, as to the composi- 
tion of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, and in 
December he retired in the latter's favour. His speech 
on this occasion was described by Mr. Eedmond, the Irish 
leader, as a masterpiece of '' magnanimity, reticence and 
patriotism.''* 

At the general election two years later Mr. Asquith 
lost his seat in East Fife, and for a short time he was out of 
Parliament. In 1920, however, he was returned for Paisley, 
a constituency for which he still sits. He now leads the 
Independent Liberal party. 

Although his classical and literary attainments fairly 
entitle him to be called a man of letters. Mr. Asquith has 
only written a single book, an " Election Guide," which 
appeared in 1885, but his published speeches form a litera- 
ture of their own. 

He has several sons living, and is at present perhaps 
the most prominent political figure in the country who is 
not in office. 

IV.— ME. LLOYD GEOEGE 

David Lloyd George was born on the 17th of January, 
1863, at a house in York Place, Oxford Eoad, Manchester. 
He was the elder son of William George, a schoolmaster, 
and of Elizabeth, daughter of the Eev. David Lloyd, a 
Baptist minister of Carnarvon. The Georges had been 
well-to-do farmers in South Wales, but William George 
had struck out a new line and become an itinerant teacher, 
wandering to London, Liverpool and other places, until 
at last he came to the Unitarian schools in Hove Street, 
Manchester, where his son first saw the light. A Non- 
conformist and a man of thoroughly Celtic temperament, 
he had led a hard life without much material success. 
Shortly after his son's birth he moved to a small farm at 
Bulford, in Pembrokeshire, where he died a year later at 
the early age of forty-four. 

Mrs. George, with two small children, was left in difficult 
circumstances, and she was glad to be able to move to the 
house of her brother Eichard Lloyd, who was a boot- 
* Hansard, December 19, 1916, 



EAKLY LIFE 341 

maker in tlie little village of Llanystumdwy, near Criccieth 
in Carnarvon. There, at the National school, her sons were 
educated up to the age of fourteen. Mr. Lloyd George is 
said to have shown considerable capacity for history and 
arithmetic, and later on he devoted himself assiduously 
to learning sufficient Latin and French to enable him to 
pass the Preliminary Law examination for admission as a 
solicitor, the career he had elected to follow. In 1879 
he was articled to a firm in Portmadoc, which was a legal 
centre in Carnarvon, and for the next few years he worked 
with spirit and energy at his profession. He became a 
member of the local debating society and showed an 
intense interest in politics, writing articles for the North 
Wales Express and taking a forward part, even at his early 
age, in the advanced Liberal and national movement that 
was then beginning in the Principality. In 1881 he went 
up to London for a few days, and paid his first visit to the 
House of Commons. Of this he recorded his impressions 
in his diary. " I will not say," he wrote, " but what I 
eyed the assembly in a spirit similar to that in which 
William the Conqueror eyed England on his visit to 
Edward the Confessor, as the region of his future domain. 
vanity !"* 

In 1884 he passed his j&nal test and was enrolled as a 
solicitor. He resolved to set up for himself, although 
he might have had, by the influence of his late employers, 
a good place as a managing clerk in another firm. He 
started in business in Criccieth, at first independently 
and subsequently in partnership with his brother. By 
hard work, adroit knowledge of the people and effective 
speaking in the various county courts, he gradually built 
up for himself a promising practice. 

In June 1888 he married Margaret, daughter of 
Richard Owen, a prosperous farmer in the neighbourhood 
of Criccieth, and began to become a figure of real impor- 
tance in North Wales. His persuasive oratory was im- 
mensely popular, he was a man of the people and he 
worked for them. Continuing his interest in local politics, 
* Spender, "Lloyd George," chap. 3. 



342 MR. LLOYD GEORGE 

in the following year he was chosen an alderman of the 
county council. He was also adopted as the parlia- 
mentary candidate for the Carnarvon Boroughs, and at a 
by-election in 1890 he just succeeded in winning the seat. 
This was a remarkable triumph for a young man of only 
twenty-seven, without any of the aids of fortune behind him. 
His reputation as a speaker had preceded him to the House 
of Commons, and when he first spoke there it was seen that 
the youthful Welsh Nationalist was not a mere irrespon- 
sible demagogue. He adhered to his popular ideals, 
and as his influence in his native country was growing 
every year he was a factor to be reckoned with. 

In 1893 he raised the question of Welsh Disestablish- 
ment and soon became a thorn in the sides of his leaders. 
Many Liberals regarded him as an extremist and it used 
to be said that he was in part responsible for the fall of 
Lord Rosebery's ministry. But among the left wing of the 
party he was looked upon as one of their most able and 
eloquent fighters, and already he had a small though 
insistent following. 

In 1897 he transferred a part of his legal business to 
London and eked out his limited means by contributing 
to the press, for his young family was now beginning to 
grow up and he had a hard fight to get on. 

During the South African War Mr. Lloyd George came 
out as a very prominent opponent of the policy of the 
Unionist government, and his unrestrained and downright 
speeches earned him much opprobrium. But he stuck to 
his own views, for he never hesitated about taking an 
unpopular line if his beliefs led him that way. He was to 
reap the reward of his courage. 

In 1905 the Liberals at last returned to power. No man 
of the stronger Radicals had deserved more than Mr. Lloyd 
George. He was appointed President of the Board of 
Trade, with a seat in the Cabinet, and his remarkable talents 
for tact and conciliation brought him very considerable 
repute in his administration of that department of 
State. When, in 1908, Mr. Asquith succeeded Sir Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, the post of 




C. Williams pinx. 



DAVID LLOYD GEOEGE 



To face page 342 



PRIME MINISTER 343 

Chancellor of the Exchequer, which had been refused by 
Mr. Morley, was offered to Mr. Lloyd George. He accepted 
it and then began to put into effect some of his ideas 
for the betterment of the people. The Old Age Pensions 
Act had just been passed, and this he determined to supple- 
ment by another and more far-reaching measure. He 
travelled in Germany and studied on the spot the con- 
ditions relating to the insurance of workers. There he met 
Herr Bethmann-Hollweg, then Minister of the Interior, 
and other leading Prussian statesmen, and so got his first 
sight at close quarters of the men whom he would one day 
have to fight. On his return to England he brought in his 
National Insurance Bill, which he followed up by a series 
of comprehensive and democratic budgets, and he rapidly 
became the first man in the government after the Prime 
Minister. He was still considered by the more moderate 
men as a dangerous iconoclast, and his inspired philippics 
against class and privilege, his subversive schemes of 
taxation and his campaigns of agitation all through the 
country roused an apparently implacable hatred among 
the Conservative party. 

On the outbreak of the European War in 1914 Mr. Lloyd 
George at once came to the very front line of politics as 
the man of energy and action. His magnetic powers of 
speech, his immense versatility in administration and his 
consummate adroitness in party management gradually 
fixed the attention of the nation upon him more than on 
any other politician. In May 1915 he became the first 
Minister of Munitions and soon put his fertile ideas of 
" speeding up " into that vital side of the struggle. A year 
later, on the death of Lord Kitchener, he went to the War 
Of&ce and infused some of his imagination and vigour into 
that department also. He was always for the most direct 
and unexpected methods, and his apparent disregard for 
the precedents of government eventually brought him into 
conflict with his leader. In December 1916 Mr. Asquith 
resigned and Mr. Lloyd George was called upon to take 
his place as Prime Minister of the Coalition government. 
It comprised not only many Liberals but also the most 

23 



344 MR. LLOYD GEORGE 

virulent of his former opponents among tlie Conservatives. 
Yet he was able to keep his colleagues united and two years 
later the war was brought to a successful conclusion. 
Mr. Lloyd George then acted as the principal British 
delegate at the Paris Peace Conference, and was largely 
responsible for the treaty which was signed in 1918 at 
Versailles. A year later he received the Order of Merit. 
Since then he has remained at the head of the govern- 
ment, dealing with the many complicated and disruptive 
issues which have latterly arisen in all parts of the United 
Kingdom and of Europe. He has now been for sixteen 
consecutive years a member of the Cabinet — a record 
unsurpassed for nearly a century — and Prime Minister 
for over five years. He is still the undoubted master 
of the House of Commons, though he is much less seen 
there than formerly. Although he is credited with many 
social qualities he goes little into the world, but among 
his few interests outside politics, music and golf are said 
to claim a place. He is fifty-nine years of age, and has a 
family of several sons and daughters. 



From these jejune facts may be drawn some limited ideas 
of the personalities of the four living examples of British 
Prime Ministers. Contemporary opinion will hardly deny 
the exceptional level of their eloquence and their mental 
abilities, and will probably admit that they have not 
derogated in their conceptions of duty from the great 
traditions of their predecessors. How high they have 
risen in statecraft and in leadership and what measure of 
genius they have displayed in the government of an empire, 
it will be for posterity to say. 



CONCLUSION 

ANALYSIS OF PKIMB MINISTEKS 

In the two centuries from 1721 to the present year there 
have thus been thirty-six Prime Ministers of England. 
Their names, arranged in the order of their first taking office, 
are: Sir Bobert Walpole, Earl of Wilmington, Henry 
Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, Duke of Devonshire, Earl of 
Bute, George Grenville, Marquess of Rockingham, Earl of 
Chatham, Duke of Grafton, Lord North, Earl of Shelburne, 
Duke of Portland, William Pitt, Henry Addington, Lord 
Grenville, Spencer Perceval, Earl of Liverpool, George 
Canning, Viscount Goderich, Duke of Wellington, Earl 
Grey, Viscount Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord John 
Russell, Earl of Derby, Earl of Aberdeen, Viscount 
Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Mar- 
quess of Salisbury, Earl of Rosebery, Arthur Balfour, 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Henry Asquith and 
David Lloyd George. 

Between them they have led fifty-two administrations, 
one being four times, two three times and nine twice at 
the head of affairs. This means that a Prime Minister's 
average total tenure of office is five and a half years, and 
that the average length of an administration is four 
years. Some have much exceeded these limits. Between 
them seven ministers were leading the government for a 
total of over a himdred years, or an average of nearly 
fifteen years each, while twelve others between them only 
covered twelve years. 

It is interesting to compare these figures with the similar 
figures in the case of France, the European country most 

345 



346 ANALYSIS OF PEIME MINISTEES 

resembling our own in its constitutional system. In the 
fifty years since the commencement of the Third Republic 
in 1871 there have been thirty-seven Presidents du Conseil 
— ^the equivalent of our Premiers — and some sixty-five 
administrations, or an average of sixteen months' leadership 
for each individual and nine months for each ministry. 
In England, in the same period, there have been only eight 
Prime Ministers and only thirteen administrations — an 
average of over six years for each minister and four for each 
administration. 

As regards their origin, of the thirty-six British Prime 
Ministers, five have been Scotsmen, three Irishmen, one 
Welsh and one of foreign extraction. Of the remainder, 
who were English, six have come from Yorkshire and 
Lancashire, while Disraeli used to say that five were 
Buckinghamshire squires.* Of those that were English- 
men properly so called, the families of more than half are 
recorded as having been settled on their own lands in 
the year 1500, but very few had those three centuries of 
nobility which, according to Lord Eussell, alone gave 
enough wisdom to rival in the House of Lords that of 
the bench of bishops or the occupants of the woolsack."]* 
Nearly every one of their surnames is simple, either one or 
two syllable words, and it is curious that the letters " P " 
or " G " begin either the names or the titles of half of their 
number. Twenty-five have been the sons of peers and 
eighteen heirs to a peerage. All except four have been 
born in easy or affluent circumstances and all except 
four have been brought up in the country. Seventeen 
were at school at Eton, five at Harrow, four at West- 
minster, one at Winchester and one at St. Paul's. Seven- 
teen went to Oxford, thirteen to Cambridge and one to 
Edinburgh University. 

Their average age for entering one or other House of 
Parliament has been twenty-five, though seven went into 
the Commons and four into the Lords at twenty-one. 
Three only entered Parliament as late as thirty-four. 

* He included himself. Jennings, 346. 
t Jennings, 283. 



AVERAGE AGES 347 

All except three have married, and at the average age 
of twenty-nine, though one ventured on matrimony eight 
years earlier and three not until after they were forty. 
Eight have married twice. Their wives have nearly always 
been of their own class, Sir Robert Walpole's second wife 
being perhaps the only exception. Twenty-five have left 
some issue, though only nineteen have now descendants 
living in the direct male liae. 

Their average age for first receiving any political ofiice 
has been thirty-two, though three were given a place when 
only twenty-three and three not before they were forty- 
eight. Their average number of years spent in office was 
twenty, though Newcastle held an office of some sort for 
forty-six and Palmerston for forty-seven years, while 
Rockingham only did so for fifteen months. Forty-four 
years was their average time spent in Parliament, of 
which twenty-three in the Lower and twenty-one in the 
Upper House. Six Prime Ministers passed all their 
parliamentary life in the Lords and twelve never left the 
House of Commons. 

Their average age for first becoming Prime Minister was 
fifty and for last ceasing to hold that position fifty-nine. 
One, however, first became Prime Minister at twenty-four 
and one not until he was seventy. One completed his 
tenure of that office as early as thirty-four and another as 
late as eighty-four. Fifteen were Prime Ministers while 
in the Commons and nineteen while in the Lords: two 
filled the place in each House. 

Twenty-one were Prime Ministers as Whigs or Liberals 
and fourteen as Tories or Conservatives, while Portland led 
a government in each capacity. The average length of 
the Tory premierships has therefore been six, while that of 
the Whig has been only five years. In the last half -century 
these periods have increased to eight and five and a half 
years respectively. Every other Prime Minister, on an 
average, has led two administrations. It is remarkable 
that the Scotsmen have only averaged two years and the 
Irishmen about fourteen months in their tenure of the 
premiership. A Saxon apparently suits the place best. 



348 ANALYSIS OF PRIME MINISTERS 

Seven or eiglit have changed their politics during their 
parliamentary careers. 

Only eight Prime Ministers can be said to have had any 
other profession than that of politics. Of these, two were 
soldiers, one a novelist, one a business man, while four 
followed the law. Nine or ten achieved some distinction 
in literature apart from politics, and half a dozen were 
notable on the turf or in the hunting field. Four 
fought a duel. Three had been Speakers of the House 
of Commons. About ten seem to have been really 
religious men. As to character their most distinguishing 
trait, common to nearly all, has been honesty of purpose 
and straightforwardness. Hardly one has " an eyesore in 
his golden coat.'' 

Their average length of life has been seventy years, 
though one died at forty-four and one at eighty-nine. Six 
attained the age of eighty. Eight died as Prime Minister. 
In other words most of them have been strong and 
healthy men, though as Lady Montfort said, " All Prime 
Ministers have the gout."* In 1792 no less than nineteen 
past or future Prime Ministers were alive, while the 
lives of three of them overlapped so as to cover two 
hundred and twenty-five years and touch the reigns 
of eleven British sovereigns. A hundred years ago it 
was said that only one man had ever led the House of 
Commons after sixty. In the last sixty years four have 
done so when over seventy and two of these were over 
eighty. 

The typical Prime Minister of the past has therefore been 
born the heir to a peerage, brought up in the country 
and educated at Eton and Oxford. Elected to the House 
of Commons at twenty-five and married four years later, 
he has first come into office at thirty-two. At forty-eight 
he has entered the House of Lords, and two years later 
has become the leader of a government. He has finally 
relinquished the position of Prime Minister at about 
sixty and has died at seventy, leaving a family behind 
him. 

* Disraeli, " Endymion," chap. 100. 



HONOURS AND ISSUE 349 

It has usually been held that high office brings great 
rewards, but comparatively few Prime Ministers have been 
materially benefited by their place apart from its power 
and patronage. Some nine or ten have received pensions 
or houses, such as Richmond Lodge or Walmer Castle, 
for a limited term. Several, on the other hand, have 
seriously diminished their fortunes by their tenure of office 
— Walpole, Newcastle, Portland, Perceval, Russell and 
Mr. Asquith are cases in point. A few have had their 
debts paid posthumously by Parliament, 

As to honours, the salutary maxim that a Prime Minister 
confers but does not accept them has been well maintained. 
The idea that an earldom is the right of an outgoing Premier 
may be true, but the practice of profiting from it has 
been little observed. Four only received this dignity 
at a single step and in two of these cases it was assumed 
during their term of office partly, at any rate, for the ex- 
pedition of public business. Two others were promoted 
in the peerage and one received a viscounty, which, it may 
be said, he had previously earned by serving as Speaker. 
But as five Prime Ministers were already dukes and so could 
not hope for any accession of titular rank, while of the 
remainder eight died in and one is now in office, only twent)''- 
two can be said so to have completed their service as really 
to have been eligible for such rewards. Fourteen of these, 
or two-thirds, did not avail themselves of the opportunity, 
and it is now forty-five years since a Prime Minister has 
been raised to the peerage. Twenty-one Prime Ministers 
have received the Garter, but this honour can hardly be 
considered in the same light as a peerage, since during the 
last two hundred years it has but rarely been conferred 
upon commoners, though several have had the refusal 
of it. 

As has been stated above, twenty-five Prime Ministers 
left some issue. One of these, however, had only daughters 
and, of the remainder, the male issue of three became extinct 
in the first generation, and that of two others in the second 
and fourth generations respectively. Thirteen of the 
twenty-five have left some twenty-four descendants in the 



350 ANALYSIS OF PEIME MINISTERS 

male line who have achieved Cabinet rank or its equivalent, 
in which are included such offices as those of Speaker or 
Go vernor-G eneral . 

All this, it may be said, does not bring us any nearer to 
the touchstone of leadership, the ingenium versatile which 
makes the ruler. For though statecraft may not be an exact 
science, neither is it wholly empiric. There must be certain 
laws for its conduct which lead to fame. Why, for instance, 
did Pulteney, Carteret, Fox, Hartington or Chamberlain 
never attain to the highest place when many men of 
much less calibre succeeded ? What was the quality they 
lacked ? The question is difficult to answer, the common 
denominator is hard to find. Perhaps the explanation is 
that the solidity and calmness of the British temperament 
prefer something simple, slow and easy of compre- 
hension to remarkable cleverness or transcendent genius. 
Emerson says that " the rulers of society must be up to 
the work of the world, and equal to their versatile office; 
men of the right Csesarian pattern, who have great range 
of affinity."'* This is the evrpoiria which so few have 
possessed. Adventitious aids, such as birth, fortune or 
family connection, were undoubtedly of the first assistance 
to many, though such great ministers as Walpole, Chatham, 
Disraeli and Gladstone certainly did not enjoy them. The 
personal magnetism which compels confidence and loyalty 
and the golden tongue of oratory were given to few. Their 
presence made a leader strong, but their absence did not 
necessarily preclude his rising to power. The only common 
factors that at first seem apparent are a sound education, 
an early entry into politics, application to business and 
good health; and these spell success in most professions. 
Pitt said that patience was the quality most needed. f 

There is, however, another clue which may point to the 
secret. Lord Rosebery, in his book on the early life of 
Chatham, itself a compact history of much of the politics 
of the early eighteenth century, lays stress upon the im- 
portance of heredity, of tradition and of environment on 
the formation of character. In such influences perhaps 
* Emerson, " Manners." f Stanhope, " Pitt," iv. 407. 



THEIR QUALITIES 351 

lie the determining factors that go to make the political 
leader of men that fit him certare ingenio, contendere 
nohilitate. The remembrance of distinguished ancestors 
and the desire to emulate their services — the historic 
surroundings of Eton or Westminster, of Oxford or 
Cambridge, and the wish to be worthy of their name — free 
association and loyal competition with ingenuous friends — 
must perforce make deep impressions on a young mind. 

Such a criterion, if applied to the Prime Ministers, appears 
a singular solvent. The fathers of more than three- 
quarters of them and the grandfathers of more than half 
had sat in Parliament before them. Three of them had 
fathers or fathers-in-law and four had brothers or brothers- 
in-law who were also Prime Ministers. There were numerous 
instances of more distant relationships; indeed, the argu- 
ment of family connection could be carried to almost any 
extent. More than three-quarters were educated at some 
one or other of the great public schools and at one or 
other of the Universities and there formed their first 
friendships and fought their first fights. Their conversa- 
tion, their interests and their ideals at home, at school 
and at college were much concerned with public affairs. 
Their early life had thus been imbued with a sound 
tradition, it had been inspired by an active and honest 
patriotism, it had been passed in a national atmosphere. 
The right metal was prepared. When it had been forged 
in the fire of Parliament it lay ready for the hand of 
fortune to take or to thrust aside. 

" Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis . . . 
Doctrina sed vim promo vet insitam 
Eectique cultus pectora roborant." 

One further point deserves thought. It comes from 
a sound critic . Lord Waldegrave had been closely attached 
to the personal service of two of his Sovereigns. He had 
known intimately ten of his contemporaries who had been 
or were to be Prime Ministers, including Walpole and 
Chatham. He had himself been offered the seals of the 
Treasury, which he had refused. A hundred and sixty 
years ago he wrote these pregnant words: 



352 ANALYSIS OF PEIME MINISTERS 

" It is a common observation that men of plain sense and 
cool resolution have more useful talents and are better 
qualified for public business than the man of the finest 
parts, who wants temper, judgment and knowledge of 
mankind. Even parliamentary abilities may be too highly 
rated; for between the man of eloquence and the sagacious 
statesman there is a wide interval/' 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF 
PRIME MINISTERS 

{All First Lords of the Treasury except those marJced with an asterisk.) 

1721 (April). Kt. Hon. Eobert Walpole, M.P.f 

1742 (February). Earl of Wilmington. 

1743 (August). Et. Hon. Henry Pelham, M.P.f 
1754 (March). Duke of Newcastle. 

1756 (November). Duke of Devonshire. 

1757 (June). Duke of Newcastle. 

1762 (May). Earl of Bute. 

1763 (April). Et. Hon. George Grenville, M.P.f 
1765 (July). Marquess of Eockingham. 

*1766 (July). Earl of Chatham. Lord Privy Seal. 
1767 (March). Duke of Grafton. 
1770 (January). Lord North, M.P.f 
1782 (March). Marquess of Eockingham. 

1782 (July). Earl of Shelburne. 

1783 (April). Duke of Portland. 

1783 (December). Et. Hon. WiUiam Pitt, M.P.f 
1801 (March). Et. Hon. Henry Addington, M.P.f 
1804 (May). Et. Hon. William Pitt, M.P.f 

1806 (January). Lord Grenville. 

1807 (March). Duke of Portland. 

1809 (October). Et. Hon. Spencer Perceval, M.P.f 

1812 (May). Earl of Liverpool. 

1827 (April). Et. Hon. George Canning, M.P.f 

1827 (August). Viscount Goderich. 

1828 (January), Duke of Wellington. 
1830 (November). Earl Grey. 

1834 (July). Viscount Melbourne. 

1834 (December). Et. Hon. Sir Eobert Peel, M.P.f 

f Also Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
353 



354 CHEONOLOGICAL TABLE 

1835 (April). Viscount Melbourne. 

1841 (August). Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Peel, M.P. 

1846 (July). Lord John Russell, M.P. 

1852 (February). Earl of Derby. 

1852 (December). Earl of Aberdeen. 

1855 (February). Viscount Palmerston, M.P. 

1858 (February). Earl of Derby. 

1859 (June). Viscount Palmerston, M.P. 

1865 (October). Earl Russell. 

1866 (June). Earl of Derby. 

1868 (February). Rt. Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, M.P. 

1868 (December). Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P-t 

1874 (February). Rt. Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P. (Earl of Beaconsfield,1876). 

1880 (April). Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.f 
*1885 (June). Marquess of Salisbury. Foreign Secretary. 

1886 (January). Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 

*1886 (July). Marquess of Salisbury. Lord Privy Seal and Foreign 
Secretary from 1887. 

1892 (August). Rt. Hon.W. E. Gladstone, M.P., and Lord Privy Seal. 

1894 (March.). Earl of Rosebery and Lord President of the Council. 
*1895 (June). Marquess of Salisbury. Foreign Secretary until 1900 and 
then Lord Privy Seal. 

1902 (August). Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P. 

1905 (December). Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, M.P. 

1908 (April). Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P., and Secretary for War 
in 1914. 

1916 (December). Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P. 

t Also Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1873-74, and 1880-82. 



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INDEX 



The surnames of peers are omitted lohen identical with their titles. 



Abercorn, J. Hamilton, 1st Marquess 
of, 268 

Aberdeen, Catherine, Countess of. See 
Haroilton 

Aberdeen, G. Gordon, 3rd Earl of, 268 

Aberdeen, George Gordon, 4tli Earl of: 
birth, early life and marriage, 268; 
Ambassador at Vienna, second mar- 
riage, in Cabinet, 269; Foreign 
Secretary, 270 ; leader of the Peelites, 
271; Prime Minister, 272; Coalition 
Government, resigns, 273; death and 
character, 274, 275; mentioned, 158, 
211, 237-8, 240, 254, 260-2, 279, 283, 
292, 300, 313-4, 345 

Aberdeen, Harriet, Countess of. See 
Douglas 

Addington, Anthony, 159, 162 

Addington, Henry, 1st Viscount Sid- 
mouth: birth, 159; M.P., 160; 
Speaker, 161; Prime Minister, 163; 
his difficulties, 164; resigns, 165; 
created a peer, Lord President, Home 
Secretary, 166; retirement and death, 
167; character, 167, 168; mentioned, 
31, 70, 74, 90, 92, 93, 97, 111, 158, 
180, 185, 186, 200, 205, 345 

Addison, Joseph, 49 

Albemarle, G. Keppel, 6th Earl of, 67, 
145 

Albemarle, W. Keppel, 2nd Earl of, 41, 
68 

Albert, H.R.H. Prince Consort, 236, 
252, 259, 313 

Alderson, Sir Edward, 300 

Alderson, Georgiana, Marchioness of 
Salisbury, 300 

Alleon,M.,58 

Althorp, J. C, Viscount. See Spencer, 
3rd Earl 

Amelia, H.R.H. Princess, 36, 48 

Anglesey, H. W., 1st Marquess of, 247 

Anne, Queen, 2, 4, 14, 32, 48, 49, 50, 117 

Arbuthnot, Mrs., 198 

Arden, C. G. Perceval, 2nd Lord, 169 

Argyll, Archibald Campbell, 1st Duke 
of, 119 

Arlington, Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of, 59 

Arnold, Matthew, 298 

Ashley, Hon. E., 212, 265 

Asquith, Herbert Henry: birth 336; 
early life, marriage, writing, 337; 



M.P., work at bar, Home Secretary, 
second marriage, 338; Chancellor of 
Exchequer, Prime Minister, Secre- 
tary for War, 339; resignation, 340; 
mentioned, 325, 327, 333, 342-3, 345, 
349 
Asquith, Joseph, 336, 337 
Asquith, Raymond, 339 
Auckland, W. Eden, 1st Lord, 94 
Augusta, Princess of Wales, wife of 
Frederick, Prince of Wales, 55, 56, 
77, 80, 118, 120, 121, 124, 126, 148 

Bagehot, W., 190 

Bagot, W., 1st Lord, 189 

Baird, Charlotte, Lady Haddo, 268 

Baird, Sir David, 268 

Baird, William, 268 

Balfour, Arthur James: birth, 333; 
early life, M.P., at Berlin, 334; 
Local Government Board, Irish 
Secretary, leader of House of Com- 
mons, Prime Minister, resigns, 335; 
at Admiralty, Foreign Secretary, 
Lord President, diplomatic work, 336 ; 
mentioned, 305, 325, 345 

Balfour, J. M., 333 

Bannerman, Sir Henry Campbell. See 
Campbell-Bannerman 

Bannerman, Henry, 322 

Bannerman, Janet, 322 

Barre, Colonel, 148 

Basevi, George, 285 

Basevi, Marie, 285 

Bath, Earl of. See Pulteney 

Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Disraeli, 
Benjamin 

Beaconsfield, Viscountess. SeeLewis,M. 

Bedford, John Russell, 4th Duke of, 
64, 104, 129, 149, 230, 231 

Bellingham, J., 174 

Bentham, Jeremy, 148 

Bentinck. See Cavendish-Bentinck 

Bessborough, Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd 
Earl of, 245 

Bethmann-HoUweg, Herr, 343 

Bismarck, Prince, 295, 303 
Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount, 

14, 15, 38, 39, 79, 83, 98, 117, 118 
Bonaparte. See Napoleon 
Bonaparte, Joseph, 193 
Boswell, James, 153 



861 



362 



INDEX 



Boyle, Lady Charlotte, Duchess of 

Devonshire, 53 
Boyle. See Burlington 
Bradford, S. L., Courtess of, 294, 297 
Brady, Dr., 12 
Bright, Rt. Hon. J, , j04 
Bristol, Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of, 

185 
Brougham, Henry, 1st Lord, 210, 211, 

227-8, 247-8 
Bruce, Sarah Charlotte, Lady Campbell- 

Bannerman, 322 
Bruce, General Sir C, 322 
Buckingham, George Grenville, 1st 

Marquess of, 105, 109, 111, 112 
Buckingham, Richard Grenville, 1st 

Duke of, 99, 113 
Buckle, Mr. G. E., 302 
Burdett, Sir Francis, 158 
Burke, Rt. Hon. Edmund, 67, 68, 81, 

87, 90, 107, 135, 141, 143, 146, 148, 

156, 162, 203, 204 
Burlington, Richard Boyle, Earl of, 53 
Burwell, Sir Jeffrey, 1 1 
Burwell, Mary, 11 

Bute, James Stuart, 2nd Earl of, 1I9 
Bute, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of: birth 

and early life, meets Prince of Wales, 

119; Secretary of State, 120; Prime 

Minister, 121; unpopularity and 

retirement, 122; later life, 123; 

character, 124-6; mentioned, 44, 45, 

55, 60, 77, 79, 80, 102, 103, 118, 

137, 141, 147, 148, 156, 166, 183, 186, 

345 
Byng, Admiral Hon. J., 54 
Byng, Hon. Georgiana, 230 
Byron, G. G., 6th Lord, 213, 244, 245, 

254, 268, 285 

Camden, C. Pratt, 1st Earl, 63, 64 

Camelford, Thomas Pitt, Lord, 110 

Campbell, Lady Anne, 119 

Campbell, Henry. See Campbell- 
Bannerman. 

Campbell, Sir James, 322 

Campbell, James, 322 

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry: birth 
and early life, M.P., 322; in Ministry, 
Irish Secretary, Secretary for War, 
323; knighted, leader of Liberal 
party, 324; South African War, 
Prime Minister, 325; death and 
character, 326, 327; mentioned, 317, 
333, 339, 342, 345 

Campden, Baptist Noel , 3rd Viscount, 2 6 

Canning, George: birth and education, 
203 ; M.P.,Under-Secretary,marriage, 
204; Paymaster - General, Foreign 
Secretary, 205; duel with Castle- 
reagh, resigns, in Portugal, 206; 



President of Board of Control, 
Foreign Secretary, 207; Prime 
Minister, 208 ; death, 210; character 
and wit, 211, 212; mentioned, 31, 
70, 71, 93, 95, 97, 110, 111, 113, 158, 
159, 164, 167, 172-4, 179, 184, 187-9 
194, 201, 202, 214, 221, 226, 243, 246, 
256, 258, 262, 267, 269, 284, 289, 291, 
298, 307, 311, 345 

Canning, C. S., 1st Earl, 210 

Canning, Mrs., 203 

Canning, Stratford, 203, 264 

Cardwell, E., 1st Viscount, 323 

Carlyle, T., 219 

Caroline, Princess of Wales, wife of 
George IV., 188-9, 207, 226 

Caroline, Queen, wife of George II., 
18, 19, 21, 24, 36, 48 

Carteret, John, Lord, afterwards Earl 
GranviUe, 19, 20, 21, 28, 29, 36, 38, 
148, 350 

Carteret, Lady Sophia, Countess of 
Shelburne, 148 

Castlereagh, R. Stewart, Viscount, 
afterwards 2nd Marquess of London- 
derry, 176, 188, 189, 205-7, 241, 246, 
309 

Cavendish. See Devonshire and New- 
castle 

Cavendish, Lady Dorothy, Duchess of 
Portland, 66, 243 

Cavendish, Lady Rachel, 52 

Cavendish, Lord John, 152 

Cavendish-Bentinck. See Portland 

Cavendish-Bentinck, Lord George, 71, 
278, 290 

Cavendish-Bentinck, Lord William, 71 

Cecil. See Salisbury 

Cecil, Lady Blanche, 333, 334 

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., 304-5, 317, 
325 335 350 

Charles II.', King, 6, 22, 50, 59, 65 

Chatham, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of, 83 

Chatham, William Pitt, afterwards 1st 
Earl of: birth, 74; early life, M. P., 75; 
his success, 76; Paymaster-General 
and marriage, 77 ; Secretary of State, 
78; his fame, 79; resigns, 80; Prime 
Minister and Earl of Chatham, 
retires, 81; later life, 82; death, 83; 
character and oratory, 84-6; men- 
tioned, 5, 19, 23, 24, 38, 41-4, 51, 
53-5, 60-4, 68, 87, 97, 99, 100, 102, 
103-5, 108, 111, 120, 122, 125, 128, 
129, 130, 132, 142, 143, 145, 148, 149, 
151, 156, 157, 159, 168, 176, 190, 
220, 243-4, 298, 345, 350-1 

Chester, M., Countess of Liverpool, 189 

Chesterfield, A. E., Countess of, 294, 297 

Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl 
of, 40, 43, 83, 123 



INDEX 



363 



CMcliester, T. Pelham, 2nd Earl of, 254 
Childers, Rt. Hon. H. C. E., 323 
Choiseul, Duo de, 85 
Cholmondeley, George, 3rd Earl of, 21 
Chudleigh, Elizabeth, Duchess of King- 
ston, 120 
Churchill, Lord R., 304, 333-4 
Clare, Gilbert Holies, Earl of, 32 
Clarendon, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of, 2 
Clarendon, G. W. Villiers, 4th Earl of, 

237, 238 
Clarke, Mrs., 173 

Cleveland, H. Vane, 4th Duke of, 330 
Cobham, Richard Temple, Viscount, 19, 

38, 58, 75, 98 
Colburn, Mr.,2S6 

Colchester, C. Abbot, 1st Lord, 178 
Colley, R., 191 
Compton, Bishop, 26 
Compton, Catherine, Countess of 

Egmont, also Baroness Arden, 168 
Compton, Hon. Charles, 168 
Compton, C, Lord, 170 
Compton, Spencer. See Wilmington 
Congreve, William, 98 
Conway, Francis Seymour, Lord, 12 
Conway, Field-Marshal Hon. H., 12, 63 
Cornwall, Mr. Speaker, 183 
Cory, W., 330 
Costello, Jordan, 203 
Costello, Mary Anne, 203 
Courtney, W., Lord, 6 
Cowper, Countess. See Lamb, Amelia 
Cowper, P., 5th Earl, 245 
Cranborne, J. E. W., Viscount, 301 
Cranbome, Viscount. See Salisbury 
Creevey, 229 
Crewe, Robert Milnes, Marquess of, 181, 

333 
Croker, Rt. Hon. J. W., 177, 180, 190, 

198, 210, 257, 289 
Cromwell, Ohver, 49, 242 
Crosby, Elizabeth, 58 
Crosby, Colonel William, 58 
Cumberland, H.R.H. W. A., Duke of, 

125, 139, 140, 141 

Dalm.eny, Lord. See Rosebery 

Dalmeny, Archibald Primrose, Lord, 330 

Delane, J. P., 274 

Delany, Mrs., 69 

Derby, Countess of. See Hornby 

Derby, E. Stanley, 13th Earl of, 275-6, 
278 

Derby, Edward Geoffrey Stanley, 14th 
Earl of: birth, 275; early life, M.P., 
marriage. Chief Secretary for Ireland, 
276; leaves Whigs, becomes Lord 
Stanley, 277; Colonial Secretary, 
resigns, succeeds his father. Prime 
Minister, 278; again Prime Minister, 



279; publishes his Homer, his third 
ministry, 280; death and character, 
281-3; mentioned, 158, 216, 218, 
233, 237-8, 260-3, 272, 287, 289, 
290-3, 301, 313-5, 345 

Derby, E. H. Stanley, 15th Earl of, 295, 
302, 317 

Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, 223 

Devonshire, S. Cavendish, 9th Duke 
of, 304-5, 316, 317, 350 

Devonshire, William Cavendish, 3rd 
Duke of, 24, 51, 52, 53 

Devonshire, William Cavendish, 4th 
Duke of: birth, 51; M.P. as Lord 
Hartington, 52; marriage and Lord- 
Lieutenant of Ireland, succeeds his 
father, 53; Prime Minister, 54; Lord 
Chamberlain, and resigns, 55; his 
treatment by George III., death, 56; 
character, 57; mentioned, 42, 66, 78, 
122, 140, 141, 243, 345 

Disraeli, Benjamin, afterwards Earl of 
Beaconsfield : birth and early life, 285 ; 
early novels and travels, 286; can- 
didate for Parliament, 287; M.P., 
marriage, 288; Young England, 289; 
his political advance. Chancellor of 
Exchequer, 291; in opposition, 292; 
Prime Minister, 293; again Prime 
Minister, peerage, 294; Congress of 
Berlin, retirement and death, 295; 
his character, eloquence and policy, 
296-9; mentioned, 155, 181, 212, 
216, 219, 241, 243, 251, 273, 278-9, 
280-1, 301-3, 307-8, 314-5, 319, 334, 
345, 350 

Disraeli, Isaac, 285, 290 

Douglas, H., Countess of Aberdeen, 269 

Douglas, Hon. James, 269 

Downing, Sir George, 6 

Drummond- Wolff, Sir Henry, 334 

Dundas. See Melville, Viscount 

Dungannon, A. Hill, 1st Viscount, 191 

Durham, J. G. Lambton, 1st Earl of, 
247 

Dyson, Mungo, 67 

Eden, Miss, 94 

Edward VII., King: and Campbell- 

Bannerman, 325 
Egmont, John Perceval, 2nd Earl of, 

168 
Egremont, Charles Wyndham, 2nd 

Earl of, 100, 102, 103 
Egremont, George Wjmdham, ord Earl 

of, 243, 244 
Eldon, John Scott, 1st Earl of, 168, 175 
Elizabeth, Queen, 1, 4, 183, 190, 200, 299 
Elliot, Lady Fanny, Countess RusseU, 

235 
Erskine, T., 1st Lord, 111 



364 



INDEX 



Esher, R. Brett, 2nd Viscount, 7, 298 
Euston, Earl of. See Grafton 
Evans, Lt. J., 288 

Fielding, Henry, 75 

Finch. See Winchilsea 

Finch, Lady Mary, Marchioness of 

Rockingham, 139 
Fitzgerald, Catherine, 74 
Fitzherbert, Mrs., 226 
Fitzmaurice. See Kerry and Shelbume 
Fitzmaurice, E. G., Lord, 72 
Fitzmaurice, Hon. John, 1st Earl of 

Shelbume, 147 
Fitzmaurice, Mary, 147 
Fitzpatrick. See Upper Ossory 
Fitzpatrick, Lady Louisa, Countess of 

Shelbume, 149 
Fitzroy. See Grafton 
Fitzroy, Lord Augustus, 58 
Fitzwilliam, W., 4th Earl of, 144 
Floyd, General Sir J., 214 
Floyd, Julia, Lady Peel, 214 
Foster, Lady Elizabeth, Duchess of 

Devonshire, 185 
Fox, Rt.Hon. Charles, 64, 67, 68, 69, 88, 

90, 93, 109, 111, 112, 131, 132, 133, 

136, 143, 150, 151, 152, 161, 165, 

170-2, 186, 203, 211, 214, 223-5, 231, 

240, 350 
Fox, Henry, afterwards 1st Lord 

Holland, 26, 42, 51, 53, 75, 78, 102, 

106, 122, 125, 147, 148, 156 
Fox, Sir Stephen, 26 
Francis, Emperor of Austria, 269 
Frederick, King of Prussia, 79 
Frederick, Prince of Wales, 38, 76, 77, 

119, 127, 134 
Frederick, Sir Charles, 84 

Garrick, David, 39, 57 

Gascoyne, Bamber, 299 

Gascoyne, Frances Mary, Marchioness 
of Salisbury, 299 

George I., King: and Walpole, 14, 15, 
17; and Wilmington, 27; and New- 
castle, 35, 48; mentioned, 4, 18, 50, 
117, 183,200 

George II., King: and Walpole, 6, 18, 
19, 36; and Wilmington, 18, 27; 
and Pelham, 38, 39, 40; and New- 
castle, 27, 35, 78; and Devonshire, 
53-5, 78; and Chatham, 53, 76, 77, 
78; and Bute, 120; mentioned 14, 
28, 29, 59, 79, 117, 118, 127, 168, 200 

George III., King: and Newcastle, 44, 

120, 121, 122; and Bute, 44, 77, 80, 
102, 103, 104, 120, 123, 125, 137; 
and Devonshire, 56, 122, 140; and 
G. Grenville, 99, 102, 103, 104, 122; 
and Rockingham, 122, 140-5; and 



Chatham, 61, 81, 82, 83, 104, 121 
141, 142; and Grafton, 59, 60, 63, 64 
122, 129; and North, 63, 68, 81, 82 
127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134 
136, 137, 275; and Shelbume, 88 
148, 150, 152, 153; and Portland, 67 
68, 69, 70, 71 ; and Pitt, 88, 89, 90 
92, 93, 95, 110, 163; and Adding 
ton, 92, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167; and 
W. Grenville, 92, 99, 108, 112, 114 
and Liverpool, 173, 174, 185, 186 
191; and Perceval, 173, 174; men 
tioned, 22, 55, 164, 182, 189, 190 
200, 201, 225, 242 
George IV., King: and Pitt, 90; and 
W. Grenville, 113, 114, 226; and 
Perceval, 171, 172, 174; and Goderich, 

179, 195; and Liverpool, 191, 207; 
and Wellington, 195, 209; and 
Canning, 207, 208, 209; and Grey, 
226; and Melbourne, 246; and 
Aberdeen, 269; and Palmerston, 256; 
mentioned, 166, 187, 201, 221, 223, 
225, 244, 276, 321 

George V., King, 333 

George, David Lloyd. See Lloyd 
George 

George, Mrs., 340 

George, Prince of Denmark, 26 

George, William, 340 

Gibbon, Edward, 89, 136, 198 

Gladstone, Herbert, 1st Viscount, 318 

Gladstone, Sir John, 310 

Gladstone, Wilham Ewart: birth, 310; 
early life, M.P., in ministry, 311; 
first book. Board of Trade, Colonial 
Secretary, 312; Peelite, Chancellor 
of Exchequer, 313; Ionian Islands, 
314; Prime Minister, 315; Midlothian 
campaign, second ministry, 316; 
third ministry. Home Rule, fourth 
ministry, 317; retirement and death, 
his oratory, 318; character, 319, 320; 
policy, 321, 322; mentioned, 5, 168, 

180, 212, 216, 243, 264, 266, 272, 
292-5, 297-9, 303-5, 327, 331-2, 
335, 338, 345, 350 

Glynne, Catherine, Mrs. Gladstone, 312 

Glynne, Sir Stephen, 312-3 

Goderich, Frederick Robinson, 1st 
Viscount: birth, early life, M.P., 
Paymaster- General, 176; marriage, 
177; President of Board of Trade, 
Chancellor of Exchequer, 178; 
created a peer and made Secretary 
for War, Prime Minister, resigns, 179; 
created Earl of Ripon, 180; character, 
180, 181; mentioned, 31, 74, 159, 173, 
194, 195, 246, 256, 262, 276-7, 345 

Godolphin, Lady Henrietta, Duchess 
of Newcastle, 33 



INDEX 



365 



Godolphin, Sydney, 1st Earl, 13, 14, 
43,49 

Gordon. See Aberdeen 

Gorst, Sir John, 334 

Goschen, Rt. Hon. G. S., afterwards 1st 
Viscount, 304 

Gower, Granville, 2nd Earl, 130 

Grafton, Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke 
of: birth and early life as Earl of 
Euston, 58; marriage, M. P., succeeds 
his uncle, 59 ; Secretary of State, 60 ; 
First Lord of the Treasury under 
Chatham, and Prime Minister, 61; 
his conduct and difficulties, 62; 
resigns, 63; second marriage. Privy 
Seal, 64; resignation and death, 65; 
character, 66; mentioned, 45, 50, 51, 
81, 122, 128, 129, 135, 140, 142, 143, 
148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 156, 345 

Grafton, 0. Fitzroy, 2nd Duke of, 55, 
58,59 

Graham, James, Marquess of, after- 
wards 3rd Duke of Montrose, 161 

Graham, Sir J., 274, 289 

Granby, J. Manners, Marquess of, 63, 147 

Grantham, T. Robinson, 2nd Lord, 176 

Grantham, T. Robinson, 3rd Lord, 179 

Granville. See Carteret 

Granville, G. L. -Gower, 2nd Earl, 263, 
316-7 

GranviUe, G. L. -Gower, 1 st Earl, 1 84, 235 

Green, Richard, 167, 175 

Grenville, Hon. George : birth and early 
life, M.P., marriage, 100; Treasurer 
of the Navy, 101 ; leader of House of 
Commons and Secretary of State, 
102; Prime Minister, 103; dismissal, 
104; his death, 105; character, 106-8; 
mentioned, 45, 62, 76, 77, 80, 82, 99, 
121, 122, 130, 138, 141, 148, 243, 345 

Grenville, Lady Hester, Countess of 
Chatham, 62, 77, 87 

Grenville, Richard, 87, 98, 100 

Grenville, Thomas, 105 

Grenville, Hon. WilHam, afterwards 
Lord Grenville: birth, early life, 
M.P., and in office, 108; Paymaster- 
General, Speaker, peerage and Foreign 
Secretary, 109; marriage, 110; in 
opposition. 111 ; Prime Minister, 112; 
later life, 113; character, 114, 115; 
mentioned, 70, 89, 91-3, 96, 99, 105, 
159, 161-2, 164, 171-4, 182, 185, 189, 
204, 205, 225, 231, 243, 245, 330, 345 

Greville, C, 180, 215, 219, 251, 257, 290 

Grey, C, 1st Earl, 222, 223 

Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl: birth, 
222; early life, M.P., 223; marriage, 
secession from Parliament, 224; 
in Cabinet, 225; in opposition, 226; 
Prime Minister, 227; Reform Bill, 



228; resigns, death, 229; character, 
230; mentioned. 111, 113, 161, 173-4, 
179, 180, 196, 201, 202, 212, 215-6, 
220, 232, 242-4, 247-8, 253, 257, 262, 
282, 287, 310, 345 

Grey, Elizabeth, 222 

Grey, George, 222 

Grey, Sir E., afterwards Viscount, 325, 
333, 339 

Grosvenor, Mr., 161 

Guilford, 2nd Earl of. See North 

Guilford, F. North, 1st Earl of, 127, 134 

Guizot, M., 290 

Haddo, Lord. See Aberdeen 

Haddo, George Gordon, Lord, 268 

Haldane, Rt. Hon. R. B., afterwards 
Viscount, 325, 333, 339 

Halifax, George Montague, 1st Earl of, 
127 

Halifax, George Montague, 2nd Earl of, 
56, 104 

Hamilton, Lady Catherine, Countess 
of Aberdeen, 268 

Hamilton, Sir William, 69 

Hamilton, Viscount, 269 

Hammond, Leonard, 160 

Hammond, Ursula Mary, Viscountess 
Sidmouth, 160 

Harcourt, Sir William, 298, 307, 317, 
324-5 

Hardwicke, P. Yorke, 2nd Earl of, 123 

Hardwicke, P. Yorke, 3rd Earl of, 159 

Harley. See Oxford 

Harley, Lady Margaret, Duchess of 
Portland, 66 

Hartington, Marquess of. See Devon- 
shire 

Hastings, Warren, 109, 153, 223 

Hawkesbury. See Liverpool 

Hazlitt, W., 177, 222 

Healy, Mr. T., 323 

Herbert, Sydney, afterwards Lord, 240 

Herries, Rt. Hon. J. C, 178, 179, 256 

Hertford, Francis Seymour, 1st Mar- 
quess of, 190 

Hertford, Isabella, Marchioness of, 226 

Hervey, John, Lord, 29, 30 

Hervey, Lady Louisa, Countess of 
Liverpool, 185 

Heytesbury, W. A'Court, 1st Lord, 218 

Hicks-Beach, Sir M., afterwards Earl 
St. Aldwyn, 304 

Higham. See Rockingham 

Hiley, Mary, Mrs. Addington, 159 

Hill, Hon. Anne, Countess of Morning- 
ton, 191 

Hoare, W.,39 

Hobart. See Buckinghamshire 

Hobart, Lady Sarah, Viscountess 
Goderich, 177 



366 



INDEX 



Holdernesse, R. Darcy, 6th Earl of, 54, 

120 
Holland, H. Fox, 3rd Lord, 99 
Holies. See Earl of Clare 
Holies, Lady Grace, 32 
Holies, Lord of Ifield, 32 
Hope, Beresford, 300 
Hornby, C. M., Countess of Derby, 275 
Hornby, Rev. Geoffrey, 275 
Hoskins, C, Duchess of Devonshire, 52 
Hoskins, John, 52 
Howick, Lord. See Grey, 2nd Earl 
Huskisson, Rt. Hon. W., 179 

Iddesleigh, Earl of. See Northcote 
Inverness, Duchess of, 240 

James I., King, 299 

JamesIL,King, 26, 242 

Jameson, Dr. L. S., 324 

Jenkinson. See Liverpool 

Johnson, Samuel, 23, 57, 86, 124, 125, 

148, 153 
Johnson, W. See Cory, 330 
Junius, 86, 107, 132, 145, 156 

Kerry, T. Fitzmaurice, 1st Earl of, 147 
Kimberley, J. Wodehouse, 1st Earl of, 

324 325 
Kitchener, F.-M. Earl, 343 
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 30 
Knighton, Sir W., 269 

Lamb. See Melbourne 

Lamb, Hon. Amelia, Viscountess 
Palmerston, ,245, 250, 253, 258 

Lansdowne, Ist Marquess of. See 
Shelburne 

Lansdowne, H. Fitzmaurice, 3rd Mar- 
quess of, 238, 247-8, 257, 314 

Lansdowne, H. C. Fitzmaurice, 5th 
Marquess of, 334 

Layard, SirH.,286 

Lee, Lord, 5 

Legge, Mrs., 54 

Legge, Rt. Hon. Henry, 44, 54 

Lewis, Marianne, Viscountess Beacons- 
field, 288, 293, 294, 297 

Lewis, Wyndham, 288 

Liddell. See Ravensworth 

Liddell, Anne, Duchess of Grafton, 59 

Liddell, Mary, Marchioness of Rocking- 
ham, 140 

Liddell, Thomas, 140 

Lieven, Princess, 227 

Lincoln, H. Clinton, 9th Earl of, after- 
wards 2nd Duke of Newcastle, 45, 64 

Lister, A., Lady John Russell, 233 

Liverpool, Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl 
of, 110, 123; his career, 183, 185; 
his opinion of Lord Grenville, 1 14 



Liverpool, Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Ear 
of: birth and early life, 183; M.P. 
and yeoman, 184; marriage. Foreign 
Secretary, 185; Home Secretary, 
186; Prime Minister, 187; his work, 
188; death, 189; character, 190, 191; 
mentioned, 71, 74, 96, 97, 113, 137, 
178, 187, 194, 200, 203, 205-9, 213, 
226, 255-6, 262, 269, 309, 345 

Lloyd, Rev. David, 340 

Lloyd, Richard, 340 

Lloyd George, David: birth, 340; 
early life, solicitor, marriage, 341; 
M.P., South African War, Board of 
Trade, 342 ; Chancellor of Exchequer, 
Minister of Munitions, Prime Minister, 
343; Paris Peace Conference, 344; 
mentioned, 325, 336, 340, 345 

Londonderry, E., Marchioness of, 281 

Longford, Edward Pakenham, 2nd 
Lord, 193 

Longford, Thomas Pakenham, 2nd 
Earl of, 193 

Louis XIV., King, 49 

Lowther, Sir James, 67, 87 

Lymington,N. Wallop, Viscount, after- 
wards 6th Earl of Portsmouth, 337 

Lyndhurst, J. Copley, 1st Lord, 228 

Lyttelton, George, 1st Lord, 38, 75, 76 

Lyttelton, Lady, 259, 274 

Lytton, E. Bulwer, 1st Lord, 234, 281, 
287, 297 

Macaulay, T. B., 1st Lord, 42, 55, 
85, 94, 103, 116, 117, 124, 145, 197, 
210, 281, 320 

Malmesbury, J. Harris, 1st Earl of, 70, 
92, 93, 110, 111, 115, 159, 164, 176, 
254, 255 

Malton. See Rockingham 

Manners. See Rutland 

Manners, Lady Catherine, wife of Henry 
Pelham, 34 

Manners, Lord John, 289 

Mansfield, W. Murray, 1st Earl of, 106 

Marlborough, John Churchill, 1st Duke 
of, 13, 14, 33, 49, 98, 194, 242 

Marlborough, Sarah Jennings, Duchess 
of, 13, 22, 76 

Masham, Mrs., 13 

Massena, Marshal, 198 

Mee, Benjamin, 254 

Mee, Mary, Viscountess Palmerston, 254 

Melbourne, P. Lamb, 1st Viscount, 244 

Melbourne, Viscountess. See Milbanke 

Melbourne, Viscountess. See Ponsonby 

Melbourne, William Lamb, 2nd Vis- 
count: birth, 244; early life and 
marriage, M.P., 245; literary pursuits, 
popularity, Irish Secretary, 246; 
Home Secretary, Prime Minister, 



INDEX 



367 



247; again Prime Minister, 248; 
with Queen Victoria, 249; his death, 
250; talents and wit, 251, 252; 
character, 253; mentioned, 6, 7, 196, 
216, 227, 229, 233-4, 241, 242, 243, 
257-8,^262, 266, 270, 277, 287, 345 

Melland, Frederick, 337 

Melland, Helen, Mrs. Asquith, 337 

Melville, Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount, 
90,97,110,152,164-5,268 

Metternich, Prince, 269, 270 

Milbanke, Elizabeth, Viscountess Mel- 
bourne, 244 

Milbanke, Sir Ralph, 244 

Minto, Gilbert EUiot, 2nd Earl of, 235 

Moira, F. Hastings, 2nd Earl of, 187 

Montagu, Hon. Edward, 119 

Montagu, Lady Lucy, Countess of 
Guilford, 127, 134 

Montagu, Lady Mary, 53, 119 

Montagu, Mary, Countess of Bute, 119 

Moore, Sir J., 206 

Morley,J.,Viscount, 7, 191, 220,262,343 

Mornington, Earl of. See Wellesley 

Munster, Count, 308 

Murray, John, 286 

Murray, WilHam. See Mansfield 

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor, 93, 173, 
188, 193, 194, 198, 205, 231, 242 

Napoleon III., Emperor, 259, 264 

Necker. See Stael 

Nelson, Admiral Viscount, 91, 94 

Nepean, Sir Evan, 133, 134 

Newcastle, Henry Cavendish, Duke of ,32 

Newcastle, H. P. Clinton, 4th Duke of, 
311 

Newcastle, H. P. Clinton, 5th Duke of, 
271, 273 

Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 
1st Duke of: birth and early life, 32; 
Earl of Clare, Duke of Newcastle, 
and Lord Chamberlain, 33; Secretary 
of State, 34; his intrigues, 36, 37; 
quarrels with Pelham, 38; Prime 
Minister, 41 ; trouble with Pitt, 
resigns, 42 ; Prime Minister again, 43 ; 
trouble with Bute, 44; resigns again. 
Privy Seal under Rockingham, death, 
45; character, 46-9; mentioned, 
18, 19, 20, 28, 30, 33-9, 51-2, 55-6, 
59, 60, 77-8, 80, 82, 102, 120-2, 128, 
140, 141, 176, 242-3, 266, 345, 347, 349 

Newton, Dr. Richard, 33 

Noel. See Campden 

Noel, Hon. Mary, Countess of North- 
ampton, 26 

North, Hon. Frederick, Lord North, 
afterwards 2nd Earl of Guilford: 
birth and early life, 127; M.P., 
marriage, 128; Chancellor of the 



Exchequer, 129; Prime Minister, 130; 
his popularity and wit, 131; diffi- 
culties, 132; resigns, joins Coalition, 
dismissal, 133; succeeds to peerage, 
death, 134; character, 135, 136; 
mentioned, 7, 62-4, 67-8, 82, 88, 97, 
118, 137, 143, 149, 150, 152, 159, 
177, 183, 186, 190, 244, 275, 345 

North, Lord Keeper, 127 

Northcote, Sir S., afterwards 1st Earl 
of Iddesleigh, 303, 304 

Northampton, J. Compton, 3rd Earl of, 
26 

Northampton, J. Compton, 5th Earl of, 
30 

Northampton, S. Compton, 8th Earl of, 
169 

Northbrook,T. G. Baring, 1st Earl of, 323 

O'Connell, D.,276 

O'Connor, Mr., 219 

Onslow, Rt. Hon. A., 23 

Orford, Earl of. See Walpole 

Owen, Margaret, Dame Lloyd George, 

341 
Owen, Richard, 341 

Oxford, Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of, 66 
Oxford, Robert Harley, 1st Earl of, 2, 

14, 15, 117 

Pakenham, Lady Catherine, Duchess of 
Wellington, 193, 196 

Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd 
Viscount: birth and early life, 254 
M.P., offered the Exchequer, Secre 
tary at War, 255; long service, 256 
joins Whigs, Foreign Secretary, 257 
successful administration, marriage 
258; again Foreign Secretary, diffi 
culties with Queen Victoria, 259 
dismissal. Home Secretary, 260 
Prime Minister, 261 ; again Prime 
Minister, 263; death, 264; his sayings 
and character, 265, 266; mentioned, 
49, 173, 199, 212, 213, 227, 234, 236, 
238-9, 240, 243, 248, 268, 270-4, 
279, 280, 292-3, 313-5, 345, 347 

Palmerston, Henry Temple, 2nd Vis- 
count, 254 

Palmerston, Viscountess. See Lamb 

Palmerston, Viscountess. See Mee 

Parnell, Mr.,323, 338 

Parsons, Nancy, 61, 62, 64 

Peel, Sir R., 1st Bt., 213 

Peel, Sir Robert, 2nd Bt. . birth, early 
life, M.P., Chief Secretary for Ireland, 
213; marriage. Home Secretary, 214; 
his high position, 215 ; Prime Minister, 
216; his reforms, 217; his defeat, 218; 
death, character, 219; policy, 220; 
mentioned, 72, 158, 173, 180, 181, 



368 



INDEX 



188, 189, 195-9, 201, 202, 209, 211, 
221, 229, 233-5, 243, 247, 250, 252, 
258-9, 267, 270, 272, 277-8, 282, 284, 
289-290, 310-3, 320, 333, 345 

Pelham, Hon. Henry: birth and parent- 
age, 32 ; early life, 33 ; M.P. , Secretary 
for War, friend of Walpole, 34; 
Paymaster-General, 35; leader of 
House of Commons, 36 ; Prime Minis- 
ter, 37; his policy, difficulties with 
Newcastle, 38; death, 39; his 
character, 40; mentioned, 19, 21, 24, 
30, 31, 43, 50, 52, 76, 77, 122, 243, 345 

Pelham, Sir Thomas, 1st Lord, 32, 33 

Perceval, Hon. Spencer: birth and 
early life, 168; marriage, barrister, 
169; M.P., 170; Solicitor- General and 
Attorney- General, 171; Chancellor 
of Exchequer, 172; Prime Minister, 
174; his assassination, 174; character, 
175;mentioned,71,113,158,187,200, 
205-6, 213, 226, 255, 262, 345, 349 

Petty Fitzmaurice. See Shelburne 

Petty, Sir William, 147 

Pitt, Hon. Anne, Lady Grenville, 110 

Pitt, Hon. William: birth and early 
Ufe, M.P., 87; Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, and Prime Minister, 88; 
his change in policy and conduct of 
affairs, duel, 90, 91; resigns, 92; 
Prime Minister again, 93 ; iUness and 
death, 94; his character, 95, 96; 
policy, 97, mentioned, 31, 65, 69, 
70, 83, 99, 108, 110, 111, 114, 115, 132, 
133, 134, 137, 151, 158, 159, 160, 
161-6, 169, 170-1, 182-6, 199, 200, 
204-5, 210, 211, 223, 225, 242-3, 
268, 284, 289, 291, 299, 309, 330, 
333, 345, 350 

PittjLady Hester, Countess Stanhope,83 

Pitt, Robert, 75 

Pitt, Thomas, 75 

Ponsonby, Elizabeth, Countess Grey, 
224, 243 

Ponsonby, Lady Caroline, Viscountess 
Melbourne, 245 

Ponsonby, W., 1st Lord, 224 

Pope, Alexander, 24, 49, 98 

Portland, William Henry Cavendish- 
Bentinck, 3rd Duke of: birth and 
early life, M.P., marriage, 66; Lord 
Chamberlain, in opposition, 67; 
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and 
Prime Minister of Coalition, 68; 
dismissed, joins Pitt as Home Secre- 
tary, 69; Lord President, 70; Prime 
Minister again, death, 71; character, 
72; mentioned, 51, 90, 97, 112, 133, 
141, 143, 152, 172-3, 186, 187, 193, 
200,205-6, 243, 255, 262, 345, 349 

Portsmouth,!. N.Wallop,5thEarlof,337 



Priestley, Dr., 148 
Primrose. See Rosebery 
Primrose, Rt. Hon. Neil, 333 
Prowse, Mr., 102 

Pulteney, William, afterwards 1st Earl 
of Bath, 16, 19, 20, 23, 28, 35, 98, 350 

Ramsay, Allen, 124 

Ravensworth, H. Liddell, 1st Lord, 59 

Redmond, J., 340 

Reynolds, Sir J., 148 

Ribblesdale, T. Lister, 2nd Lord, 233 

Richmond, C, 4th Duke of, 188 

Rigby, Rt. Hon. R., 129 

Ripon, 1st Earl of. See Goderich 

Robespierre, C, 242 

Roberts, F. S., 1st Earl, 198 

Robertson, Andrew, 310 

Robertson, Anne, 310 

Robinson, Hon. Frederick. See 
Goderich 

Robinson, Sir Thomas, afterwards 
1st Lord Grantham, 41, 42, 176 

Rockingham, Charles Watson-Went- 
worth, 2nd Marquess of: birth and 
early life, 139; succeeds to peerage, 
resigns his court appointment, 140; 
Prime Minister, 141; dismissal, 142; 
Prime Minister again, 143; his early 
death, 144; character, 145, 146; men- 
tioned, 39, 45, 56, 60, 64, 67, 68, 81, 
87, 88, 97, 105, 122, 128, 129, 133, 138, 
148, 149, 150, 156, 243-4, 345, 347 

Rockingham, Thomas Watson- Went- 
worth, 1st Marquess of, 139 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 113, 169 

Rose, Rt. Hon. George, 90, 93, 97, 152 

Rosebery, Archibald Primrose, 5th 
Earl of: birth and education, 330; 
succeeds to peerage, marriage, in 
ministry, 331; Privy Seal, Foreign 
Secretary, Prime Minister, London 
County Council, Liberal League, 
332; his writings, 333; mentioned, 
7, 24, 29, 50, 53-7, 220, 266, 305, 307, 
317-8, 324-5, 338-9, 342, 345, 350 

Rothschild, Baron Meyer de, 331 

Rothschild, Hannah de. Countess of 
Rosebery, 331 

Russell, Lord J., 230 

Russell, Lord John, afterwards Earl 
Russell: birth, 230; early life, M.P., 
literature, 231, in Cabinet, Reform 
Bill, 232; leader of House of Com- 
mons, marriage, 233; unpopularity, 
234 ; second marriage. Prime Minister, 
235; difficulties with Palmerston, 
defeat, 236; in Coahtion ministry, 
237; goes to Vienna, Foreign Secre- 
tary, and raised to peerage, 238; 
Prime Minister again, death, 239; 



INDEX 



369 



character, 240, 241; mentioned, 201, 

218, 221, 227, 247-8, 259, 260-2, 

271-4, 277-8, 280, 290-1, 293, 310, 

311-5, 337, 345-6, 349 
RusseU, Rt. Hon. G. W. E., 265, 307, 

320, 332 
Russell, Sir Charles, afterwards Lord, 

338 
Russell, William, Lord, 52 
Rutland, John Manners, 2nd Duke of, 34 
Ryder, Hon. D., afterwards 1st Earl 

of Harrowby, 97, 170, 171 

Sacheverell, Dr., 27 

St. John. See Bolingbroke 

Salisbury, F. M., Marchioness of. See 
Gascoyne 

Salisbury, G. C, Marchioness of. See 
Alderson 

Salisbury, James Cecil, 2nd Marquess of, 
299, 334 

Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne Cecil, 3rd 
Marquess of: birth, 299; early life, 
M.P., marriage, writings, 300; suc- 
ceeds to peerage, Indian Secretary, 
301; at Constantinople, Foreign 
Secretary, 302; Prime Minister, 303; 
again Prime Minister, 304; third 
ministry and retirement, 305 ; death, 
character, 306-9; mentioned, 5, 
295, 316, 334-5, 345 

Sancroft, Archbishop, 26 

Sandwich, J. Montagu, 4th Earl of, 104 

Scott. See Stowell and Eldon 

Scott, General John, 70, 204 

Scott, Hon. Marian, Viscountess Sid- 
mouth, 167 

Scott, Joan, afterwards Viscountess 
Canning, 204, 210 

Scott, Sir W., 210, 231, 285 

Seymour, Miss, 171 

Seymour, Sir Edward, 12 

Shaftesbury, A. Ashley, 7th Earl of, 265, 
318 

Shackleton, W.,39 

Shelburne, Thomas Fitzmaurice, 1st 
Earl of, 147 

Shelburne, William Petty Fitzmaurice, 
2nd Earl of: birth, military career, 
succeeds to peerage, 147; President 
of Board of Trade, resigns, marriage. 
Secretary of State, 148; second 
marriage, 149; in opposition, 150; 
Prime Miaister, 151; resigns, 152; 
created Marquess of Lansdowne, his 
death, 153; his talents, character, 
154-7; mentioned, 68, 69, 73, 81, 
87, 88, 108, 121, 125, 132, 13«i, 136, 
138, 143, 176, 224, 345 

Shelley, Lady, 198 

Sheridan, R. B., Ill, 112, 203, 204 



Shorter, Catherine, Lady Walpole, 12 

Shorter, Charlotte, Lady Conway, 12 

Shorter, John, 12 

Shrewsbury, Charles Talbot, Duke of, 4 

Sidmouth, Viscount. See Addington 

Skelmersdale, Lord. See Wilbraham 

Skerret, Maria, Lady Walpole, 19 

Smith, Adam, 155, 198 

Smith, Rt. Hon. W. H., 335 

Sondes, L., 1st Lord, 39 

Soult, Marshal, 193 

Speke, Anne, Lady North, 128 

Speke, George, 128 

Spencer, G. J., 2nd Earl, 110, 111, 247 

Spencer, J. C, 3rd Earl, 233, 247, 254 , 
268 

Spencer, J. P., 5th Earl, 317, 323 

Stael, Madame de, 94, 187 

Stanhope,J.,lstEarl,2,12,14, 15, 16,75 

Stanhope, Lady Catherine, Lady Dal- 
meny, afterwards Duchess of Cleve- 
land, 330 

Stanhope, P., 4th Earl, 330 

Stanhope, P. H., 5th Earl, 44, 57, 65, 
145 

Stanley, Lord. See Derby 

StoweU, W. Scott, 1st Lord, 167 

Strachey, Mr. Lytton, 246, 264 

Strafford, T., Earl of, 2, 139 

Strangford, George Smythe, Lord, 289 

Sunderland, C. Spencer, 3rd Earl of, 3, 
14, 15, 16, 33, 49 

Sutherland, E., Duchess of, 240 

Sutton, James, 160 

Sussex, H.R.H. Augustus, Duke of, 228 

Swift, Jonathan, 49 

Talleyrand, M. de, 156, 257 
Tavistock, Francis Russell, Marquess 

of, 230 
Temple. See Palmerston 
Temple, Hester Grenville, Countess, 87, 

98, 100, 116 
Temple, Hon. William, 257, 258, 262 
Temple, Richard Grenville, Earl, 54, 68, 

60, 75, 77, 100, 103-6, 108, 116 
Temple, Sir John, 254 
Temple, Sir Richard, 100 
Temple, Sir Wilham, 254 
Tennant, Margaret, Mrs. Asquith, 338 
Tennant, Sir Charles, 338 
Thurlow, E., 1st Lord, 151 
Tierney, Mr., 91, 170 
Titchfield, Marchioness of, 204 
Titchfield, Marquess of. See Portland 
Torrington, G. Byng, 4th Viscount, 230 
Townshend, Charles, 2nd Viscount, 12, 

14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 33, 34, 243 
Townshend, D., Viscountess, 33 
Townshend, Rt. Hon. Charles, 129 
Townshend, Thomas, 167 



370 



INDEX 



Upper Ossory, John Fitzpatrick, Earl 
of, 149 

Victoria, Queen: and Wellington, 197; 
and Melbourne, 248, 249, 252; and 
Peel, 216, 250; and Russell, 234-7; 
and Palmerston, 236, 259, 260 2, 
264; and Aberdeen, 237, 272, 273; 
and Derby, 260, 261, 278, 292; and 
Disraeli, 291, 294, 295, 298, 302; and 
Salisbury, 303,308; and Gladstone, 
298, 313, 315, 316, 321; and Lord 
Rosebery, 332; mentioned, 168, 201, 
251, 272, 284, 310, 333 

Villiers, Harriet, wife of Robert Pitt, 74 

Villiers, Hon. Edward, 74 

Voltaire, M. de, 79 

Waldegrave, Countess of. See Walpole, 
Maria 

Waldegrave, James, 2nd Earl, 40, 46, 
52, 64, 55, 59, 80, 120, 124, 351 

Walpole, Dorothy, Lady Townshend, 
12,33 

Walpole, Hon. Horace, afterwards 4th 
Earl of Orford, 21, 30, 47, 48, 62, 
67, 69, 81, 100, 106, 128 

Walpole, Hon. Sir Edward, 21 

Walpole, Horatio, afterwards Lord 
Walpole of Wolterton, 12, 24 

Walpole, Maria, afterwards Duchess of 
Gloucester, 21, 66 

Walpole, Robert, 11 

Walpole, Sir Edward, 11 

Walpole, Sir Robert, afterwards 1st 
Earl of Orford: birth, 11; early life, 
M.P., marriage, 12; Treasurer of the 
Navy, 13; Paymaster- General, 14; 
First Lord of the Treasury, 15; 
Prime Minister, 16; his government, 
17-20; his death and family, 21; his 
character, 22-4; policy, 25; other- 
wise mentioned, 2, 3, 6, 7, 27, 28, 29, 
31, 33-7, 48, 49, 52, 66, 75, 76, 84, 86, 
97, 98, 100, 122, 139, 242-3, 290, 309, 
345, 347, 349, 350-1 

Washington, George, 156 

Watson. See Rockingham 

Watson-Wentworth. See Rockingham 

Watts, Ameha, 183 

Watts, W., 183 

Wellesley. See Wellington 

Wellesley, Hon. Gerald, 192 

Wellesley R., 1st Marquess, 168, 187, 192 

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke 
of: birth, 191; mihtary career in 



India, 192; marriage, M.P., Chief 
Secretary for Ireland, commanding 
in Peninsula, raised to peerage, 193; 
at Vienna, Waterloo, joins the 
Cabinet, 194; Prime Minister, 195; 
in opposition. Foreign Secretary, 196; 
death, 197; character, 198, 199; 
mentioned, 72, 91, 105, 158, 173, 
179, 187, 205, 208-9, 212, 214, 216, 

226, 231-2, 246, 256-8, 262, 269, 278, 
345 

Westbury, R. Bethell, 1st Lord, 263 
Weymouth, T. Thynne, 3rd Viscount, 

130 
Wilberforce, Samuel, 89, 168 
Wilbraham, Edward, Lord Skelmers- 

dale, 276 
Wilbraham, Emma Caroline, Countess 

of Derby, 276 
Wilkes, John, 60, 61, 103, 104, 132, 148 
Willans, Emily, 336 
Willans, William, 336 
William IIL, King, 2, 10, 49, 50, 52, 66 
WiUiam IV., King, 258; and Goderich, 

180; and Wellington, 196; and Grey, 

227, 228, 248; and Melbourne, 233, 
247, 248 ; and Russell, 233 ; mentioned, 
197, 201, 229 

Wilmington, Hon. Spencer Compton, 

Earl of Wilmington: birth, early 

life, 26; M.P., Speaker, K.B., 27; 

Privy Seal and Lord President, 28; 

Prime Minister, death, 29; character, 

30; mentioned, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 

31, 36, 76, 168, 345 
Wilson, Jane, wife of Spencer Perceval, 

169 
Wilson, Sir James, 169 
Winchilsea, Daniel Finch, 7th Earl of, 

139 
Winchilsea, G- Finch, 10th Earl of, 195 
Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, 95, 114, 134, 

135, 154, 223 
Wrottesley, Elizabeth, Duchess of 

Grafton, 64 
Wrottesley, Sir Richard, 64 
Wyndham, Elizabeth, wife of George 

Grenville, 100, 105, 108 
Wyndham, Sir William, M.P., 100, 108 

Yates, E., 213 
Yates, W., 213 

York, H.R.H. Frederick, Duke of, 173 
Yorke. See Hardwicke 
Yorke, Lady Mary, Lady Grantham, 
176 



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